This section includes the following topics:

• Frequent SLA Breaches
• Hotspot Detected
• Significant Backend Activity

Frequent SLA Breaches

SLA thresholds are defined to help the user pinpoint transactions experiencing performance issues according to specific criteria. Frequent SLA breaches and near breaches can be caused by an underlying performance issue.

Working with the finding

To effectively locate the root cause of the performance finding, perform one of the following:

• Click on the transaction's link, and then look at the overtime SLA behavior to locate and zoom in to a specific (problematic) time frame. View the findings for that time frame and drill down until you locate the root cause.
• Select the root level of the transactions tree and select the Transactions tab. A high rate of SLA breaches across the application could result from overall resource exhaustion. Open the Tiers tab, follow the link to the heaviest ones and open the Statistics tab to learn more about the environment performance issues, like high memory usage, CPU usage and so on.
• Go to AdminPoint > Settings > SLA to view the thresholds definitions. (When you have too many SLA breaches, it may be a result of thresholds that are not defined appropriately for your application).

Hotspot Detected

A high work time for a specific hotspot (reflecting the hotspot's work time only, without the underlying call path), can indicate a performance issue within the context of that hotspot.

In the same way, a high work time for a specific occurrence of a hotspot invoked multiple times in the invocation tree can indicate a performance issue within the context of that specific occurrence.

Working with the finding

To effectively locate the root cause of the performance finding, perform the following:

• Examine the heaviest occurrences further by following the featured link. The invocation tree opens to the hotspot's heaviest call path, facilitating effective navigation to the root cause. Examine the information displayed and look at the overtime graph and findings to drill down further to find the root cause of the performance issue.

  By default, information is displayed for the heaviest hotspot's call path. To investigate the other call paths, select them from the invocation tree. (They are highlighted in bold).

Significant Backend Activity

A significant percentage of the selected entity's total service time is spent waiting for back-end activity (for example, J2EE, .NET and so on).

A possible solution is to consider tuning your transaction performance and the time spent executing external activity in the appropriate tier.

Working with the finding

To effectively locate the root cause of the performance finding, perform the following:

• Select the link in the expanded finding area in order to view this transaction in the Transactions tab.
• Analyze the transaction in order to determine the appropriate back-end tier that should be investigated next.