Thread dumps are essential for diagnosing performance issues in applications, often spanning hundreds of lines. Condensing this data into a flame graph simplifies analysis. The article outlines generating flame graphs from Java or JVM languages by capturing thread dumps using jstack and analyzing them with the fastThread tool. Flame graphs enhance code visualization.
This article provides a simplified troubleshooting strategy for diagnosing CPU spikes in cloud environments. It outlines a three-step process: identifying high CPU-consuming threads, capturing thread dumps, and analyzing the dumps to trace the problematic lines of code. The example illustrates how a non-terminating loop causes CPU spikes in an application.
Identifying the critical code path is essential for performance optimization and creating accurate test suites. Less than 5% of code often accounts for over 90% of execution time, making its optimization key. Thread dumps help in pinpointing these paths by grouping stack traces, enabling targeted testing and improved application performance.