1.1.1 Collecting Internet service performance data

PFM - Agent for Service Response enables you to collect performance data, such as an Internet service's response times.

PFM - Agent for Service Response lets you collect and use performance data in the following ways:

• Collecting information about an Internet service's response performance

  PFM - Agent for Service Response collects information about an Internet service's response performance by sending requests to the Internet service's server, and by measuring the amount of time it takes to receive a response and the data transfer throughput. The information collected by PFM - Agent for Service Response, such as response times and throughput, is called the response performance information. PFM - Agent for Service Response can monitor the following eight types of Internet services:

  • HTTP

  • HTTPS

  • SMTP

  • POP3

  • IMAP4

  • DNS

  • DHCP

  • FTP

  • TCP

• Measuring transactions

  For measurement of the services of HTTP and HTTPS (abbreviated hereafter to HTTP(S)), PFM - Agent for Service Response supports not only measurement of a single request/response, but also a series of tasks consisting of multiple HTTP(S) requests/responses as a single Web transaction.

• Measuring the operations in the Internet Explorer

  PFM - Agent for Service Response measures the time to finish displaying Web pages in the Internet Explorer and collects the approximate performance data close to the actual performance the users experience in the Internet Explorer. It enables you to define and measure an IE scenario on a series of tasks consisting of multiple sets of operations in Internet Explorer.

• Extending the target services

  You can measure a service other than the standard services supported by PFM - Agent for Service Response by providing a program for measuring the target service's response times, and then registering your program as a user-defined command in PFM - Agent for Service Response.

With PFM - Agent for Service Response, you use the collected performance data as follows:

• By graphically displaying the Internet service's operating status

  By using PFM - Web Console, you can process and display performance data in a graphical format called a report. A report facilitates analysis of the Internet service's operating status.

  There are two types of reports:

  • Real-time reports

    A real-time report indicates the current status of an Internet service that is being monitored. A real-time report is used primarily to check the current status of the system and to detect problems in the system. To display real-time reports, PFM - Agent for Service Response uses current performance data that has just been collected.

  • Historical reports

    A historical report indicates the status over time of an Internet service that is being monitored from past to present. A historical report is used primarily to analyze trends in the system. To display a historical report, the system uses performance data that has been stored in a database for PFM - Agent for Service Response.

• Using performance data to determine whether a problem has occurred

  If the performance data value collected indicates some sort of error, an action can be taken, such as notifying the user.

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