Monitoring policy settings

Use this page to view or change settings that control how the node agent monitors and restarts a process.

To view this administrative console page, click Servers > Application Servers > server_name > Process Definition > process type > Monitoring Policy.

Configuration tab

Maximum Startup Attempts
Specifies the maximum number of times to attempt to start the application server before giving up.
Data type Integer
Ping Interval
Specifies, in seconds, the frequency of communication attempts between the parent process, such as the node agent, and the process it has spawned, such as an application server. Adjust this value based on your requirements for restarting failed servers. Decreasing the value detects failures sooner. Increasing the value of this property reduces the frequency of pings, thereby reducing system overhead.
Data type Integer
Range Set the value greater than or equal to 0 (zero) and less than 2147483. If you specify a value greater than 2147483, the application server acts as though you set the value to 0. When you specify a value of 0, no checking is performed.
Default 60 seconds

In a z/OS environment, the Ping Interval setting for a deployment manager or a node agent is ignored. However, the Ping Interval setting for an application server is used by the node agent to control the native z/OS operating system PidWaiter monitoring function. PidWaiter monitoring is similar in functionality to the Ping Interval function that is used in a distributed platform environment. Both of these monitoring functions determine whether an application server is still running. The only difference between the two monitoring functions is that PidWaiter monitoring does not send any of the TCP/IP messages that Ping Interval monitoring sends.

In a z/OS environment, you can set the following two properties to considerably reduce the number of DNS lookups that might occur because of this monitoring activity:

  • You can add the JVM custom property com.ibm.websphere.management.monitoring.pingInterval for the controller for each WebSphere Application Server process. The default value for this property is 60 seconds. It is not recommended that you change this default value unless you need to minimize the number of DNS lookups that occur. If you need to minimize the number of DNS lookups that occur, set this property to a time interval that is more appropriate for your system. See Example: Setting Custom JVM Properties for a description of how to add this property to your JVM configuration settings.

    When this property is set for the deployment manager, it determines how frequently the deployment manager checks to see if the node agent is still running. When it is set for the node agent, it determines how frequently the node agent checks to see if the deployment manager is still running. When it is set for an application server, it determines how frequently the application server checks to see if the node agent is still running. .

  • You can add the environment variable protocol_iiop_resolve_foreign_hostname at the cell level, and set it to the value 0 (zero). See WebSphere variables for a description of how to add this variable. Setting this variable to 0 disables the IIOP resolve foreigh hostname function.

Adding these two properties does not completely eliminate DNS lookups from within WebSphere Application Server processes.

Ping Timeout
When a parent process is spawning a child process, such as when a process manager spawns a server, the parent process pings the child process to see whether the child was spawned successfully. This value specifies the number of seconds that the parent process should wait (after pinging the child process) before assuming that the child process failed.
Data type Integer
Units Seconds
Range Set the value greater than or equal to 0(zero) and less than 2147483. If you specify a value greater than 2147483, the application server acts as though you set the value to 0.
Automatic Restart
Specifies whether the process should restart automatically if it fails. This setting only applies if the application server shuts down abnormally. The default is to restart the process automatically.

This setting does not affect the Node Restart State setting. The two settings are mutually exclusive.

Data type Boolean
Default true
Node Restart State
Specifies the desired state for the process after the node completely shuts down and restarts. If this property is set to STOPPED, when the node agent is restarted, the associated application servers that are still running are not stopped.

This setting does not affect what you specified for the Automatic Restart setting. The two settings are mutually exclusive.

Data type String
Default STOPPED
Range Valid values are STOPPED, RUNNING, or PREVIOUS. If you want the process to return to its current state after the node restarts, use PREVIOUS.

Related reference
Administrative console buttons
Administrative console page features



Searchable topic ID:   urun_rmonitorpol
Last updated: Jun 21, 2007 9:56:50 PM CDT    WebSphere Application Server for z/OS, Version 5.0.2
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