Android APM

How Can I...

• Learn more about Site24x7 Android Mobile APM?
• Add Mobile APM?
• Instrument Mobile APM in my native app?
• Initialize the agent?
• Start a transaction?
• Group operations within a transaction using components?
• Flush the data?

Overview

Site24x7 Mobile APM for Android lets you track the performance of your native mobile applications on actual end-user devices. For example, a news reader application may perform the following operations internally:

• Launch an activity to show a list of articles
• Load the list of articles using a REST API call
• Cache the list of articles in an SQLite database
• Download a thumbnail for each article
• Cache the thumbnails to the filesystem
• Build a complex UI such as a custom list view layout

All of the above are potentially long-running operations that impact user experience so it's important to benchmark and optimize them across various devices. Site24x7 Mobile APM gathers and aggregates metrics from all your users across the globe by embedding an APM agent in your applications in the form of a library.

The APM agent measures the execution time of your code using transactions and components. In the previous example, the entire sequence of operations from launching the activity to rendering the final UI can be considered a transaction. The individual operations can be grouped into different component types such as HTTP, SQLite, filesystem, UI etc. Simple operations can be measured using just transactions, while complex operations can be measured using transactions with components.

Add Mobile APM

1. Login to Site24x7 and go to Android OS section under APM tab.
2. Click on Add Application button.
3. Enter the application name and Apdex threshold.
4. On successful addition, you will be provided with an application key and a link to download the library files (Mobile_APM_Android.zip). The same application key must be used for all versions of your application.

Usage

Start by logging in to the Site24x7 website and creating a new Mobile APM application. You will be provided with an application key and a link to download the library files. The same application key must be used for all versions of your application.

Import  apm-<version>.jar   into your Android project as a referenced library and mark it for export. Edit the javadoc location for the library and specify  apm-<version>-javadoc.jar   as the archive location.

The APM agent requires the following permissions to be declared in AndroidManifest.xml:

< uses-permission  android:name = "android.permission.ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE" />
< uses-permission  android:name = "android.permission.INTERNET" />

Initialization

Initialize the APM agent by invoking  Apm.startMonitoring() in the onCreate() method of your  Application subclass with the application key you obtained earlier. The APM agent uploads data to Site24x7 every 60 seconds by default. You can customize the upload interval if desired. If no data has been recorded, the APM agent will not make unnecessary network connections regardless of the interval.

import  com.site24x7.android.apm.Apm;
public class  MyApplication  extends  Application {
     @Override
     public void  onCreate() {
          super .onCreate();
          Apm. startMonitoring (getApplicationContext(),  "0123456789abcdef0123456789abcdef" );
     }
}

Using Transactions

Start a transaction by invoking  Apm.startTransaction()and providing it with a name. You should typically start a transaction before a long-running operation and stop it when the operation is complete. Transactions are thread-safe and can be started and stopped from different threads. A transaction object can only be started and stopped once. Transactions with the same name are averaged across the application. Thus, when the same operation is executed multiple times using the same transaction name, the average execution time is recorded.

private void   listArticles() {
     Transaction  transaction   = Apm. startTransaction ( "List Articles" );
     // Perform long-running operation
     Apm. stopTransaction ( transaction );
}

Using Components

You can group operations within a transaction into components by invoking Transaction.startComponent()and specifying a type. You can use one of the predefined types such as Component.TYPE_HTTP, Component.TYPE_SQLITE, Component.TYPE_UI etc., or specify your own type. Components are thread-safe and can be started and stopped from different threads. A component object can only be started and stopped once. A component object cannot be stopped after its parent transaction has already been stopped. Multiple components in a transaction can overlap and run in parallel. Components with the same name within a transaction are averaged.

In the above example, the total time taken by HTTP operations (downloading articles and thumbnails) are measured by  Component.TYPE_HTTP   and the time taken for just the articles is measured by  "Download Articles" . The time taken for each thumbnail   is averaged and recorded by  "Download Thumbnail"   since it executes multiple times within a loop.

Flushing Data

Sometimes it's desirable  to manually flush recently recorded data to Site24x7's servers using the  Apm.flush()method. You may want to do this if you record transactions just before your application or activity is destroyed. If you've set a large upload interval (the default is 60 seconds), you should manually flush data whenever appropriate in case the application is terminated before the next upload interval.