Performance Analyzer Tool

Performance Analyzer displays the data recorded by the Collector so that you can examine the information. Performance Analyzer processes the data and displays various metrics of performance at the level of the program, its functions, source lines, and instructions. These metrics are classed into the following groups:

• Clock profiling metrics

• Hardware counter profiling metrics

• Synchronization wait tracing metrics

• I/O tracing metrics

• Heap tracing metrics

• MPI tracing metrics

• Sample points

Performance Analyzer's Timeline view displays the raw data in a graphical format as a function of time. The Timeline view shows a chart of the events and the sample points recorded as a function of time. Data is displayed in horizontal bars.

Performance Analyzer can also display metrics of performance for structures in the dataspace of the target program, and for structural components of the memory subsystem. This data is an extension of the hardware counter metrics.

Experiments recorded on any supported architecture can be displayed by Performance Analyzer running on the same or any other supported architecture. For example, you can profile an application while it runs on an Oracle Solaris SPARC server and view the resulting experiment with Performance Analyzer running on a Linux machine.

A client version of Performance Analyzer called the Remote Performance Analyzer can be installed on any system that has Java available. You can run this remote Performance Analyzer and connect to a server where the full Oracle Solaris Studio product is installed and view experiments remotely. See Using Performance Analyzer Remotely for more information.

Performance Analyzer is used by other tools in the Oracle Solaris Studio analysis suite:

• Thread Analyzer uses it for examining thread analysis experiments. A separate command tha starts Performance Analyzer with a specialized view to show data races and deadlocks in experiments that you can generate specifically for examining these types of data.

  Oracle Solaris Studio 12.4: Thread Analyzer User’s Guide describes how to use Thread Analyzer.

• The uncover code coverage utility uses Performance Analyzer to display coverage data in the Functions, Source, Disassembly, and Inst-Freq data views. See Oracle Solaris Studio 12.4: Discover and Uncover User’s Guide for more information.

See Chapter 4, Performance Analyzer Tool and the Help menu in Performance Analyzer for detailed information about using the tool.

Chapter 5, er_print Command-Line Performance Analysis Tool describes how to use the er_print command-line interface to analyze the data collected by the Collector.

Chapter 6, Understanding Performance Analyzer and Its Data discusses topics related to understanding the Performance Analyzer and its data, including how data collection works, interpreting performance metrics, call stacks and program execution.

Chapter 7, Understanding Annotated Source and Disassembly Data provides an understanding of the annotated source and disassembly, providing explanations about the different types of index lines and compiler commentary that Performance Analyzer displays. The chapter also describes the er_src command line utility that you can use to view annotated source code listings and disassembly code listings that include compiler commentary but do not include performance data.

Chapter 8, Manipulating Experiments describes how to copy, move, and delete experiments; add labels to experiments; and archive and export experiments.

Chapter 9, Kernel Profiling describes how you can use the Oracle Solaris Studio performance tools to profile the kernel while the Oracle Solaris operating system is running a load.