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Configuring and Using the WebLogic Diagnostics Framework

# Overview of the WLDF Architecture

The WebLogic Diagnostic Framework (WLDF) consists of a number of components that work together to collect, archive, and access diagnostic information about a WebLogic Server instance and the applications it hosts. This section provides an architectural overview of those components.

Note: Concepts are presented in this section in a way to help you understand how WLDF works. Some of this differs from the way WLDF is surfaced in its configuration and runtime APIs and in the WebLogic Server Console. If you want to start configuring and using WLDF right away, you can safely skip this discussion and start with Understanding WLDF Configuration.

The WLDF architecture is described in the following sections:

- Overview of the WebLogic Diagnostic Framework
- Data Creation, Collection, and Instrumentation
- Archive
- Watch and Notification
- Data Accessor
- Diagnostic Image Capture
- How It All Fits Together

# Overview of the WebLogic Diagnostic Framework

WLDF consists of the following:

- Data creators (data publishers and data providers that are distributed across the WLDF components)
- Data collectors (the Logger and the Harvester component)
- Archive component
- Accessor component
- Instrumentation component
- Watch and Notification component
- Image Capture component

Data creators generate diagnostic data that is consumed by the Logger and the Harvester. Those components coordinate with the Archive to persist the data, and they coordinate with the Watch and Notification subsystem to provide automated monitoring. The Accessor interacts with the Logger and the Harvester to expose current diagnostic data and with the Archive to present historical data. The Image Capture facility provides the means for capturing a diagnostic snapshot of key server state. The relationship among these components is shown in Figure 2-1.

Figure 2-1 Major WLDF Components

All of the framework components operate at the server level and are only aware of server scope. All the components exist entirely within the server process and participate in the standard server lifecycle. All artifacts of the framework are configured and stored on a per server basis.

# Data Creation, Collection, and Instrumentation

Diagnostic data is collected from a number of sources. These sources can be logically classified as either data providers, data creators that are sampled at regular intervals to harvest current values, or data publishers, data creators that synchronously generate events. Data providers and data publishers are distributed across components, and the generated data can be collected by the Logger and/or by the Harvester, as shown in Figure 2-2, and explained below.

Figure 2-2 Relationship of Data Creation Components to Data Collection Components

Invocations of the server logging infrastructure serve as inline data publishers, and the generated data is collected as events. (The logging infrastructure can be invoked through the catalog infrastructure, the debugging model, or directly through the Logger.)

The Instrumentation system creates monitors and inserts them at well-defined points in the flow of execution. These monitors publish data directly to the Archive.

Components registered with the MBean Server may also make themselves known as data providers by registering with the Harvester. Collected data is then exposed to both the Watch and Notification system for automated monitoring and to the Archive for persistence.

# Archive

Past state is often critical in diagnosing faults in a system. This requires that state be captured and archived for future access, creating a historical archive. In WLDF, the Archive meets this need with several persistence components. Both events and harvested metrics can be persisted and made available for historical review.

Traditional logging information, which is human readable and intended for inclusion in the server log, is persisted through the standard logging appenders. New event data that is intended for system consumption is persisted into an event store using an event archiver. Metric data is persisted into a data store using a data archiver. The relationship of the Archive to the Logger and the Harvester is shown in Figure 2-3.

The Archive provides access interfaces so that the Accessor may expose any of the persisted historical data.

Figure 2-3 Relationship of the Archive to the Logger and the Harvester

# Watch and Notification

The Watch and Notification system can be used to create automated monitors that observe specific diagnostic state and send notifications based on configured rules.

A watch rule can monitor log data, event data from the Instrumentation component, or metric data from a data provider that is harvested by the Harvester. The Watch Manager is capable of managing watches that are composed of a number of watch rules. These relationships are shown in Figure 2-4.

Figure 2-4 Relationship of the Logger and the Harvester to the Watch and Notification System

One or more notifications can be configured for use by a watch. By default, every watch logs an event in the server log. In addition SMTP, SNMP, JMX, and JMS notifications are supported.

# Data Accessor

The Accessor provides access to all the data collected by WLDF, including log, event, and metric data. The Accessor interacts with the Archive to get historical data including logged event data and persisted metrics.

When accessing data in a running server, a JMX-based access service is used. The Accessor provides for data lookup by type, by component, and by attribute. It permits time-based filtering and in the case of events filtering by severity, source and content.

Tools may wish to access data that was persisted by a server which is not currently active. In these cases an offline Accessor is also provided. You can use it to export archived data to an XML file for later access. To use the Accessor in this way, you must use WebLogic Scripting Tool (WLST) and must have physical access to the machine.

The relationship of the Accessor to the Harvester and the Archive is shown in Figure 2-5.

Figure 2-5 Relationship of the Online and Offline Accessors to the Harvester and the Archive

# Diagnostic Image Capture

The Diagnostic Image support gathers the most common sources of key server state used in diagnosing problems and packages that state into a single artifact that can be made available to support, as shown in Figure 2-6. The diagnostic image is, in essence a diagnostic snapshot or dump from the server, analogous to a UNIX "core" dump.

The image capture support includes both an on-demand capture process and an automated capture based on some basic failure detection.

Figure 2-6 Diagnostic Image Capture

# How It All Fits Together

Figure 2-7 shows how all the parts of WLDF fit together.

Figure 2-7 Overall View of the WebLogic Diagnostic Framework