[Personal Note: This is my 60th Tech Tip more or less. Number one was created July 2011 and can be found at https://communities.ca.com/message/22049399#22049399.]
Introduction
This month we conclude our look at TIM Trace Options. The prior chapters can be found below:
https://communities.ca.com/message/241847328#241847328 Part 1: Overview
APM Tech Tip: TIM Trace Options -- The Missing Pages Part 2 Part 2: What options are available.
But the real purpose for the examination of this overlooked area is going into the rationale behind the following Knowledge Document.
http://www.ca.com/us/support/ca-support-online/product-content/knowledgebase-articles/TEC1281821.aspx
Tim Trace Options Rationale
1) Going up the OSI Stack
Using the OSI (Open Systems Interconnection model ) Model can be helpful in debugging TIM issues. The following is a typical bottom-up approach that may not be needed for all cases
2) Do I have a network connection and seeing HTTP/HTTPS/Flex traffic correctly?
This includes answering a series of questions like the following progression:
- Do I have traffic at all?
- Is it HTTP/HTTPS/Flex traffic?
- Is it two way traffic?
- Is it traffic from the desired web servers?
Note that the TIM Readiness Guide also covers this. See https://communities.ca.com/docs/DOC-101446785
To determine this, tracing connections and HTTP Components/parameters are helpful.
You can see the IP addresses the TIM sees, if the traffic has Opens, Resets, and Closes, see if HTTP Requests/Responses, determine if the network/servers changes the IP address along the way, is truncating information and so forth
3) Am I decoding SSL traffic correctly?
- TIM is limited what it can give you currently. More information is
provided about unsuccessful than successful transactions. What can be provided
is the following:
- Connection and IP information
- TLS version and ciphersuite used
- HTTPS decoded requests and responses
- Out of order and other SSL-related errors
- This should be supplemented by a PCAP analysis with the private key installed
on the packet analysis computer.
4) Am I having User/User Group Issues?
- TIM Trace options can be enabled to provide
- Session identification values for monitored transactions
- User values
- Whether or not a user was assigned to a user group as well as the user
group name.
5) Am I having Defect or Transaction Definition issues?
- TIM Trace options can be set to tell you:
- If a transaction matches against a transaction definition
- Which transaction definition was matched.
- How many defects were created?
- Which defect type was created and for which business transaction?
There are other uses of TIM trace options that I have left. Please respond to this posting on some of the other uses of TIM Trace options that you may deploy.
Thank you for positive feedback for the last five years on these Tech Tips. I plan to continue discussing APM best practices for some time to come. Please keep sending your topic suggestions, stories, and feedback to hallett.german@ca.com. I