Searching the Help
To search for information in the Help, type a word or phrase in the Search box. When you enter a group of words, OR is inferred. You can use Boolean operators to refine your search.
Results returned are case insensitive. However, results ranking takes case into account and assigns higher scores to case matches. Therefore, a search for "cats" followed by a search for "Cats" would return the same number of Help topics, but the order in which the topics are listed would be different.
Words and Phrases
| Search for | Example | Results |
|---|---|---|
| A single word | cat
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Topics that contain the word "cat". You will also find its grammatical variations, such as "cats". |
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A phrase. You can specify that the search results contain a specific phrase. |
"cat food" (quotation marks) |
Topics that contain the literal phrase "cat food" and all its grammatical variations. Without the quotation marks, the query is equivalent to specifying an OR operator, which finds topics with one of the individual words instead of the phrase. |
Using Boolean Operators
| Search for | Operator | Example |
|---|---|---|
|
Two or more words in the same topic |
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| Either word in a topic |
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| Topics that do not contain a specific word or phrase |
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| Topics that contain one string and do not contain another | ^ (caret) |
cat ^ mouse
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| A combination of search types | ( ) parentheses |
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Performance monitoring tasks
The following table lists maintenance tasks that a System Administrator needs to perform in the Performance Monitoring area. For information about other areas, see Areas of maintenance tasks.
|
Event or frequency |
Task |
Automatable |
|---|---|---|
| Daily | Review the server log for performance messages | Yes |
| Daily | Analyze dbdicts containing log information | Yes |
| Weekly | Check view and favorite creation | No |
| Weekly | Check the usergrid table for changes to user’s record lists | Yes |
| Daily | Monitor system reports for performance related information | Yes |
| Daily | Performance monitoring tasks | Yes |
| Quarterly | Monitor the dbdicts purging progress | Yes |
Review logs for performance messages
This task includes the following subtasks.
Review the server log for performance messages
The Service Manager server log files contain a lot of information about system availability and performance.
Review the output produced by alert messages and proactively activated trace parameters. The alert log messages provide information about potential performance issues, or other specific situations that require attention.
Analyze dbdicts containing log information
Service Manager maintains multiple dbdicts with log information for different purposes. Among them, the reportLogs dbdict is important for performance monitoring.
It is important for the System Administrator to review the performance log file and see if a task is slow. Each reporting query may take a different amount of time to execute, and therefore manual review is required.
Look for report queries that are often more complex than other queries and are expected to take more time for execution. It is therefore not possible to define a one-fits-all threshold.
It is important to identify long-running reports, and learn their business requirements and implementation. Based on this knowledge, the System Administrator can decide on how to act on excessive report execution times or the trends that are identified.
Check view and favorite creation
If users are given the ability to create views and favorites (public or private), the System Administrator will need to put into place a process where the administrator can check the records in the inbox table regularly to ensure that the queries and sort sequences used in the views and favorites are properly indexed. If a sort sequence is specified, the fields used in the sort sequence should be part of the index.
Additionally, if the administrator finds multiple users creating the same private inbox, the administrator needs to consider creating a public inbox for all users in a query group (all users that have this inbox created). By doing this, the administrator will be able to keep the number of records in the inbox table under control. For performance tuning of queries, refer to Performance of dbdicts and tables.
Knowledge required for system maintenance > Performance of dbdicts and tables.
Check the usergrid table for changes to user’s record lists
Check the usergrid table to see what users are saving as their qbe formats. If you find that many users have added the same field to a particular QBE, you may want to consider adding the field to the default QBE format. Remember to delete the appropriate records from the usergrid file once you have modified the format.
Monitor system reports for performance related information
Monitor the following system report on a daily basis.
| Parameter | Description |
|---|---|
|
sm - reportcache |
If the average slot depth exceeds 20, consider reconfiguring the shared memory cache size by the cache_slots parameter. For more information, see Startup parameter: cache_slots. |
Monitor the server’s performance statistics
Check for memory usage and CPU usage peaks to ensure smooth operation. Over time, with more concurrent users logging in, it may be necessary to add more memory or more CPU, or adding more servlets to serve the increasing user community.
Monitor the dbdicts purging progress
Data, queue, or log dbdicts containing a large number of records can impact system performance, and therefore archiving and purging should be configured.
Monitor the number of records in these dbdicts frequently to supervise cleanup activities.
Related topics
Troubleshooting: Slow execution of queries
Trace parameters that can be proactively activated
Dbdicts containing log information
