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The following describes the reports available in Database Visibility on the Database Activity Window. The reports available depend on the database platform being monitored. The reports are listed in alphabetical order and indicate which database platform supports them.

Access the Database Activity Window

To access the Database Activity window

  1. To view a database's activity, click the name of the database.
  2. Click the Activity tab.
     

Features of the Database Activity Windows

To view the database reports of different databases, click the down arrow next to the database name at the top of the page. From the list, select the database you want to view or search for the database in the search bar. Click the refresh icon to show only databases that meet that search criterion.

The activity reports available are described below. The reports available are database-dependent. The reports are listed in alphabetical order and indicate which database platform supports them. The reports will only show 10 days of data, which is the Events Service limit.

Wait State

Description: This report displays time-series data on Wait Events (states) within the database. Each distinct wait is color-coded, and the Y-axis displays time in seconds. This report also displays data in a table and highlights the time spent in each wait state for each SQL statement.

Relevance: The wait states consuming the most time may point to performance bottlenecks. For example, db file sequential reads may be caused by segment header contention on indexes or by disk contention. 

Platform: IBM DB2, Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL, Oracle, PostgreSQL, Sybase, and Sybase IQ

Max CPU - It displays the CPU cores present in the database server and is disabled by default. The CPU core count is collected using SQL (for Oracle, DB2, and MSSQL) and Hardware monitoring (if enabled for MySQL, PostgreSQL and Sybase). 

Phase

Description: This report displays the elapsed time during a phase of query execution. If the Couchbase version < 7 and Database Agent < 21.9, then the report displays the number of documents processed.

To view the elapsed time for the phases instead of document count you require the following:

  • Database Agent version >=21.9 
  • Controller version >=21.11 
  • Couchbase version >=7

Relevance: The phase processing the most documents may point to performance bottlenecks.

Platform: Couchbase

Top Activity

Description: Display the top time in database SQL statements in a time-series view. This report also displays data in a table and highlights the time spent in the database for each of 10 top SQL statements. Only queries reported by newer agents are grouped; the queries reported by older agents may not appear upon grouping. 

Relevance: Use this report to see which SQL statements are using the most database time. This helps to determine the impact of specific SQL statements on overall system performance allowing you to focus your tuning efforts on the statements that have the most impact on database performance. 

Platform: IBM DB2, Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL, Oracle, PostgreSQL, Sybase, Sybase IQ, and Couchbase

Time Comparison

Description: This report allows compares the performance of two databases during the same time period based on a specific statistic type. You can click Group Similar to group together queries with the same number of parameters. Only queries reported by newer agents are grouped; the queries reported by older agents may not appear upon grouping. 

Relevance: You may want to compare the performance of your development and production databases before and after you tune the SQL queries or add an index or join. This report can help you determine the effectiveness of any performance tuning procedures you have implemented. 

Platform: IBM DB2, Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL, Oracle, PostgreSQL, Sybase, and Sybase IQ

I/O

Description: This report gives information on physical I/O performed by the database instance. 

The SQL Server and PostgreSQL I/O reports include the following metrics:

  • Time spent in the database
  • Query throughput
  • CPU usage (if hardware monitoring is enabled)
  • Read and Write I/O. This metric is only available for SQL Server.
  • Per file statistics (if the agent is run with the dbagent.mssql.datafile.statistics property). This metric is only available for SQL Server.
  • Per database statistics. This metric is only available for PostgreSQL.

Relevance: Your physical disk I/O may be affecting database performance.
Poor response times may mean one of the following:

  • You're doing too much physical I/O and need to adjust your I/O capacity
  • You're scanning tables or indexes when you should be doing seeks
  • Your database tables are missing indexes
  • Your SQL needs to be tuned

Platform: Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, PostgreSQL

Top Query

Description: This report displays the top 10  SQL statements for the specified statistic in a time-series view. 

You can filter queries by command type using the Command Type dropdown menu and by statistic type using the Statistic Type dropdown menu.


With the Controller version 21.2.0 and later, some of the unused statistic types under the Statistic Type dropdown menu are removed from the list. You can filter queries using the most common statistic types.


Relevance: Use this report to see which SQL statements are using the most database resources. This helps to determine the impact of specific SQL statements on overall system performance allowing you to focus your tuning efforts on the statements that have the most impact on database performance.  You can choose one of many statistics to base the report on.

Platform: IBM DB2, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle

Query Wait State

Description: This report displays the wait times for all queries.

Relevance: Use this report to see how much time queries are spending in different wait states.

Platform: IBM DB2, Microsoft SQL Server, MongoDB, MySQL, Oracle, PostgreSQL, Sybase, and Sybase IQ

Parameter Changes 

Description: This report displays changes to the database configuration parameters. You can select a parameter change and click one of the following options:

  • View Event Details: Displays the parameter change event details, such as comments associated with the parameter change.
  • View Comparison Report: Compares the query run times and wait states 15 minutes before and 15 minutes after the database parameter was changed. The comparison report is not available for clusters.

Relevance: Use this report to keep track of the changes you make to the database configuration parameters.

Platform: IBM DB2, Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Azure, MySQL, Oracle, PostgreSQL, Sybase ASE, and Sybase IQ

BT Activity

Description: This report displays the top (Java or PHP) business transactions that make calls to the database.

Relevance: Use this report to see which business transactions are affected by the database.

Platform: IBM DB2, Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Azure, MySQL, Oracle, PostgreSQL, Sybase ASE, and Sybase IQ