Multilevel analysis of the java virtual machine based on kernel and userspace traces

Abstract

Performance analysis of Java applications requires a deep understanding of the Java virtual machine and the system on which it is running. An unexpected latency can be caused by a bug in the source code, a misconfiguration or an external factor like CPU or disk contention. Existing tools have difficulties finding the root cause of some latencies because they do not efficiently collect performance data from the different layers of the system. In this paper, we propose a multilevel analysis framework that uses Kernel and userspace tracing to help developers understand and evaluate the performance of their applications. Kernel tracing is used to gather information about thread scheduling, system calls, I/O operations, etc. and userspace tracing is used to monitor the internal components of the JVM such as the garbage collectors and the JIT compilers. By bridging the gap between kernel and userspace traces, our tool provides full visibility to developers and helps them diagnose difficult performance issues. We show the usefulness of our approach by using it to detect problems in different Java applications.