Capturing Sampling Data

Directives to the JADE Object Manager for the invocation characteristics of the user library are provided during normal JADE execution. The available types of sampling, described in the following sections, are:

Automatic, initiated by setting the SamplingNode parameter in the [JadeClient] or [JadeServer] section of your JADE initialization file to true.
Manual local, initiated by using a set of methods in the Node class. This type of sampling assumes that if you have knowledge of what the application is doing internally, you can modify the application itself to direct the sampling of activities. For details, see "Node Class External Methods" or "Using the JADE Sampling Application", respectively, later in this chapter.
Remote, initiated by using:
- A set of methods in the System class.
- Extended facilities in the JADE Sampling application.
For details, see "System Class External Methods" or "Using the JADE Sampling Application", respectively, later in this chapter.

You can initiate more than one sampling context simultaneously in any node. Each set of directives relates to a sampling context. You can specify a different user library for each sampling context. For details, see "Sampling Library Interface", later in this chapter.

JADE provides the filesmpl and tcpsmpl standard libraries, which use the same interface that is available to you. The filesmpl library produces a flat file for each sampling context. The file contains a record for every invocation made to it by the JADE Object Manager. The tcpsmpl library outputs sample statistics to a TCP/IP connection and can read filter commands from a connection. Both libraries can read filter commands from a connection.

In addition, JADE provides a full project with the source code for a comprehensive sampling library. This chapter describes the format for those records and refers to them when illustrating the kind of information that is available to you.