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Performance tool — Using the summary display

Use the Performance tool to understand the system resources consumed by processing a single requestor session, or the SQL statements sent by the requestor session to the PegaRULES database.

Pega Platform always accumulates cumulative resource statistics for the Performance tool. Use the tool to display these statistics, and to identify incremental resources (in the delta rows) consumed by your processing. Because this feature displays existing data, its use does not degrade processing.

Basics

Using this data, you can assess possible sources of improved performance (faster response time or higher throughput) through software changes, hardware changes, or rule changes.

As Pega Platform operates, it collects statistics about the demands made on processing resources, and the server system's response. The Performance tool summarizes and formats these statistics and presents them as HTML pages.

Performance data shows the processing demand statistics of your work since you connected, and may help you assess the performance impact between different approaches or configuration choices.

The DB Trace facility records SQL interactions between your Pega Platform session and the PegaRULES database.

Performance statistics can help you distinguish between performance issues that arise in the Pega Platform server, the PegaRULES database, or external systems called by the workflow. In all cases, the statistics can help you determine how to improve performance.

Using the links

Use these links at the top of the summary display:

Link

Effect
Add Reading

A new row of summary performance data appears. Statistics include input/output, elapsed time in seconds for certain processing, cache performance, locking, and server CPU demand, for the most recent interaction. Optionally, first click elsewhere in the portal window and perform one or several interactions that cause the performance you want to measure. The system retains extensive data for each interaction.
Add Reading with Clipboard Size

A new row of summary performance data appears, including the size of the clipboard in bytes. Similar to Add Reading, but may add potentially costly processing. (Using the System Management Application (SMA), you can learn the size of each page. Start the SMA using Designer Studio > System > Operations > System Management Application, select a node, then click the Requestor Management menu item.)

Reset Data

Initializes all counts and totals to zero.
Save Data

Lets you save more than 100 statistics and values from each row into a Comma-Separated-Values file (CSV file type) for analysis with Microsoft Excel or other facilities. Column headings correspond to properties in the Code-Pega-PAL class, as presented on the Full Details display. (The value NaN indicates that a statistic was not available.)
Start DB Trace

Starts the DB Trace tool to trace PegaRULES database operations.

See Interpreting database trace results.
DB Trace Options

See Database trace options.
Start Profiler

Starts the Profiler to provide detailed CPU statistics for activity steps. When you select it, the link changes to Stop Profiler. Execute the activities or other rules to be profiled. Click the Stop Profiler link when you are finished. The resulting window lists a Profiler file for each Thread that you used, identified by your Requestor ID and Thread Name. Select a file for the Thread of interest to you and click Download or Display Data to send the CSV file to your workstation. Choose Open or Save in the Windows dialog box. Open the file with Microsoft Excel to review and analyze the data.

You can also access this functionality using the Performance Profile tab on the Performance landing page (Designer Studio > System > Performance).

See About the Performance Profiler landing page tab.

Show Graph

Presents a bar chart highlighting major factors affecting performance.

See Interpreting the Performance Summary chart.
My Alerts

Provides additional detail on alerts from your own requestor session (or other filter criteria you provide).

See Working with the My Alerts display.

Help

Displays this help topic.
PDN

Queries the PDN for the most recent articles regarding this tool. WWW access is required.

For each summary row, many more statistics are available on the full detail page. To see full details, click the Full or Init link on a row.

Understanding the basic statistics

The basic statistics display has three or four rows. On the initial display, statistics in the row labeled Full match those in the bottom row.

As you interact with Pega Platform, the statistics change to reflect the results of each interaction.

Label

Description

full

Statistics in the top row reflect totals since your session started, or since the most recent Reset Data operation.

(none)

The second row provides labels for the columns.

delta

Delta rows appear as you interact with Pega Platform. Each row shows values from a single interaction.

init

The bottom row shows the totals when this Performance display first appeared.

Columns of the display identify these counts and timings. The table below describes returned data. All CPU time is in milliseconds. The properties are stored in the PALPhase clipboard page, and are in the Code-Pega-PAL class.

The number of decimal places in timing results depends on the hardware and software in use. In general, the decimal values shown are significant. Measurement values are since log-in, or since the last Reset, or incremental between rows, depending on the row label.

Label

Description
Int #

Sequence number of the most recent completed interaction.
Int Count

Total number of interactions.
Total Elapsed

Total elapsed time for this interaction.
RA Elapsed

Rules assembly elapsed time.
Rule I/O Elapsed

Elapsed time spent finding rules.
RDB I/O Elapsed
pxRDBIO

Elapsed time executing SQL operations against the PegaRULES database; excludes Connect SQL executions for the PegaRULES database or external databases.

Connect Elapsed
pxConnectElapsed

Time spent waiting for an Connect rule execution to an external system .
Other I/O Elapsed

Elapsed time accessing non-rule-resolved instances from the PegaRULES database plus elapsed time retrieving non-rule database lists.

Total CPU

Total CPU time used.
RA CPU

CPU time spent assembling Java classes.
Rule CPU

CPU time spent executing rules.
Other CPU

CPU time excluding rules assembly CPU and Rule CPU.
RA Count

Number of Java classes assembled.
Rule Count

Number of times rules are found.
Activity Count

Number of activities started by this thread, including activities where an exception occurred during execution.
Connect Count

Number of connector attempts made to external systems.
Other I/O Count
pxOtherIOCount

Number of times Pega Platform attempts to create lists from the database.

Alert Count
pxAlertCount

Number of alerts created by your requestor session.

Total Bytes

Total bytes of input and output.

Accessing the full details display

Click the INIT, FULL, or DELTA links to access the Full Details display for that row. This display provides additional statistics from the same snapshot.

For a description of the contents of that window, see Performance tool — Full Details Display.

Technical note

When two instances of Pega Platform are installed on a single Windows server, some Performance tool statistics may not be available on the installation that is started second.

Related information

Tools — System

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