Configuring TIBCO ActiveSpaces 2, Version 5.2

This section describes the required configurations as well as the optional configurations available for TIBCO ActiveSpaces 2 in the RTView Configuration Application.

Configuring Data Collection

Note: See Creating Secure Connections for additional information on creating secure connections to TIBCO ActiveSpaces 2.

  • Navigate to Solution Package Configuration > TIBCO ActiveSpaces 2 > CONNECTIONS tab.
  • On the CONNECTIONS tab, provide the correct full path to the directory containing the TIBCO Active Spaces JDBC jar file in the Classpath field. For example:

%RTVAPM_HOME%/../ext/tibco/as/2.1.6/as-common.jar

  • In the Connections section, click the  icon.

The Add Connection dialog displays.

  • Enter the metaspace name, the domain name(s), connection name(s), and space name(s) to which you want to view data and click Save to connect to your metaspace, where:

Metaspace - the name of the metaspace to be monitored.

Domain Name - arbitrary name that can be used to differentiate collectors when their results are aggregated into a common cache at the central rtview collection server.

Spaces - Click All to monitor all spaces in the metaspace, or click Select to specify a semi-colon separated list of space names that you want to monitor.

Connect Method - Select from the following two options:

Use Discovery / Listen URLs - the following two fields display when you select this option:

Discovery URL - If your dataserver is on the same subnet as your metaspace cluster (the recommended method), specify this field using the following format:

tcp://interface:port;interface2:port2;interface3:port3 tibpgm://dport/interface;multicast/key1=value1;key2=value2;key3=value3 tibrv://service/network/daemon

Set this field to "-" to accept the default "tibpgm".

If your data server is a remote client and you set up an as-agent as follows:

java -jar as-agent.jar -name as-agent0 -metaspace <metaspace> -remote_listen tcp://<agent-host-ip>:<agent-port>

Then you would configure the Discovery URL as follows:

Discovery URL=tcp://<agent-host-ip>:<agent-port>?remote|true listen=tcp://<dataserver-host-ip>:<dataserver-port>

Note: Using the syntax "remote|true" instead of "remote=true" is a work-around for a limitation of the RTView connection property parser.

Listen URL - If your data server is on the same subnet as your metaspace cluster (the recommended method), specify this field using the following format:

tcp://interface:listen_port

Set this field to "-" to accept the default. Since release 1.1.1 of ActiveSpaces, the listen URL port now defaults to 50,000, instead of randomly choosing a port above 30,000. If the port is already in use, the port number is automatically incremented to the first available port.

Use Security Token File - the following fields display when you select this option:

Security Token File - Specifies the token file for a security domain requestor that must be authenticated by a security domain controller. If TIBCO ActiveSpaces security is implemented and you are connecting from a requestor node, and the metaspace to which you are connecting requires a token file, specify this parameter and provide the directory path and filename for the token file. If you copy the security token file to the current project directory, the path can be eliminated and just the name of the security token file can be entered. If you specify the security token, you should not use the discovery parameter since discovery values are defined in the security token file. This field is optional.

Identity Password - Enter the value of the password used to create the safe identity password required with the security token file. This field is optional.

Authentication User - The username to be used to authenticate. This field is optional.

Authentication Password - The password for the authentication user. This field is optional.

Authentication Key File - The full path for a file containing the key to use for authentication. This field is optional.

Authentication Domain - The (Windows) domain name for user authentication. This field is optional.

The newly created connection displays in the Connections section.

  • Optionally, you can specify the Poll Rates (query interval, in seconds) that will be used to collect the metric data for all caches by clicking on the DATA COLLECTION tab and entering the desired polling rate. The caches impacted by this field are: TasQueryStats, TasSpaceStatistics, TasMemberStatistics, TasMembers, TasMetaspaces, and TasSeeders.

Configuring Historical Data for TIBCO ActiveSpaces (Optional)

Optionally, you can specify the number of history rows to store in memory, the compaction rules, the duration before metrics are expired and deleted, and the different types of metrics that you want the Historian to store for TIBCO ActiveSpaces in the DATA STORAGE tab in the RTView Configuration Application. These configurations already contain default values and modifications to these configurations are optional.

Defining the Storage of TASMON In Memory History

You can modify the maximum number of history rows to store in memory in the DATA STORAGE tab. The History Rows property defines the maximum number of rows to store for the TasSpaceStatistics, TasMembers, TasMetaspaces, and TasSeeders caches. The default settings for History Rows is 50,000. To update the default setting:

  • Navigate to the Solution Package Configuration > TIBCO Active Spaces > DATA STORAGE tab.
  • In the Size region, click the History Rows field and specify the desired number of rows.

Defining TASMON Compaction Rules

Data compaction, essentially, is taking large quantities of data and condensing it using a defined rule so that you store a reasonably sized sample of data instead of all of your data, thus preventing you from potentially overloading your database. The caches impacted by these fields are: TasSpaceStatistics, TasMembers, TasMetaspaces, and TasSeeders caches. The available fields are:

Condense Interval -- The time interval at which the cache history is condensed for the following caches: TasSpaceStatistics, TasMembers, TasMetaspaces, and TasSeeders. The default is 60 seconds.

Condense Raw Time -- The time span of raw data kept in the cache history table for the following caches: TasSpaceStatistics, TasMembers, TasMetaspaces, and TasSeeders. The default is 1200 seconds.

Compaction Rules -- This field defines the rules used to condense your historical data in the database for the following caches: TasSpaceStatistics, TasMembers, TasMetaspaces, and TasSeeders. By default, the columns kept in history will be aggregated by averaging rows with the following rule 1h -;1d 5m;2w 15m, which means the data from 1 hour will not be aggregated (1h - rule), the data over a period of 1 day will be aggregated every 5 minutes (1d 5m rule), and the data over a period of 2 weeks old will be aggregated every 15 minutes (2w 15m rule).

  • Navigate to the Solution Package Configuration > TIBCO Active Spaces > DATA STORAGE tab.
  • In the Compaction region, click the Condense Interval, Condense Raw Time, and Compaction Rules fields and specify the desired settings.

Note: When you click in the Compaction Rules field, the Copy default text to clipboard link appears, which allows you copy the default text (that appears in the field) and paste it into the field. This allows you to easily edit the string rather than creating the string from scratch.

Defining Expiration and Deletion Duration for TASMON Metrics

The data for each metric is stored in a specific cache and, when the data is not updated in a certain period of time, that data will either be marked as expired or, if it has been an extended period of time, it will be deleted from the cache altogether. By default, metric data will be set to expired when the data in the cache has not been updated within 45 seconds. Also, by default, if the data has not been updated in the cache within 3600 seconds, it will be removed from the cache.

The caches impacted by these fields are: TasQueryStats, TasSpaceStatistics, TasMemberStatistics, TasMembers, TasMetaspaces, and TasSeeders. To modify these defaults:

  • Navigate to the Solution Package Configuration > TIBCO Active Spaces > DATA STORAGE tab.
  • In the Duration region, click the Expire Time and Delete Time fields and specify the desired settings.

Enabling/Disabling Storage of TASMON Historical Data

The History Storage section allows you to select which metrics you want the Historian to store in the history database. By default, historical Cluster Metaspaces (TasMetaspaces cache), Members (TasMembers cache), and Object Space Stats (TasSpaceStatistics cache) are saved to the database. Seeders (TasSeeders cache) data is not saved by default. To enable/disable the collection of this historical data, perform the following steps:

  • Navigate to the Solution Package Configuration > TIBCO Active Spaces > DATA STORAGE tab.
  • In the History Storage region, (de)select the toggles for the metrics that you do/do not want to collect. Blue is enabled, gray is disabled.

Note: In some deployments, the data volume added by enabling these metrics can easily scale to levels exceeding the ability of RTView Enterprise Monitor to maintain this data in the cache and the history database. You should be certain that you really need this level of detail and that you have the available database capacity before enabling these tables.

Defining a Prefix for All History Table Names for TASMON Metrics

The History Table Name Prefix field allows you to define a prefix that will be added to the database table names so that RTView Enterprise Monitor can differentiate history data between data servers when you have multiple data servers with corresponding Historians using the same solution package(s) and database. In this case, each Historian needs to save to a different table, otherwise the corresponding data server will load metrics from both Historians on startup. Once you have defined the History Table Name Prefix, you will need to create the corresponding tables in your database as follows:

  • Locate the .sql template for your database under RTVAPM_HOME/tasmon/dbconfig and make a copy of template.
  • Add the value you entered for the History Table Name Prefix to the beginning of all table names in the copied .sql template.
  • Use the copied .sql template to create the tables in your database.

Note: If you are using Oracle for your Historian Database, you must limit the History Table Name Prefix to 2 characters because Oracle does not allow table names greater than 30 characters (and the longest table name for the solution package is 28 characters).

To add the prefix:

  • Navigate to Solution Package Configuration > TIBCO Active Spaces > DATA STORAGE tab.
  • Click on the History Table Name Prefix field and enter the desired prefix name.