Initial investigation

In an application crisis situation of this type, this administrator can leverage Fathom-supplied information to alert him to immediate problems and provide him data related to the crisis.

Table 8–2 lists the possibilities the system administrator considers. Note the blank column in the table. As he reviews each possibility, he can use this table as a checklist. He will check the items he decides to consider further.

Table 8–2: Crisis review checklist
Access and review...
To...
 
Alert and other data indicators you have set up to monitor and display data on the collections page.
Quickly examine issues that might be the crux of this dramatic change in performance.
As previously noted in the "Implementing business requirements with Fathom Management at XYZ Corporation" section, this administrator has several indicators set up, including viewlets related to his AppServer brokers.
 
Data details in log files such as the database log files, AppServer log files, customized log files and so forth.
Examine log file data from the time period that the crisis initially occurred.
Determine if there is any noteworthy, relevant information in error logs related to the crisis situation.
 
Network- and server-related data details, using TCP resource monitors he previously set up
Determine the status and response time, if any, for mail, FTP, and Web Servers that might be running on the network.
 
Network-related data details, using Packet Internet Grouper (PING) (ICMP) resource monitors he previously set up
Determine if network resources are available.
 
Server-related data details
Determine if AppServer server details and/or AppServer broker details are of help in problem determination.

While quickly scanning the checklist, the system administrator kept thinking about what his frantic users said about the performance issue: nothing was working. He felt that there was possibly a network problem to resolve, but where was the source? Since most of the transactions related to the procedures that were not currently functioning ran on a remote AppServer, the administrator decided to follow this thought to a specific investigative path.


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