Managing Operations through Java Management Extensions (JMX) |
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JMX, which stands for Java Management Extensions is a Java based technology that provides tools for managing and monitoring devices (Printers), applications and other service driven networks.The resources which must be managed are represented by Managed Components(JMX Managed Bean). For additional information, refer here.
The JMX architecture enables exposing manageable components through various protocols. In addition to the standard RMI protocol, other connectors such as protocol adaptors can also be added. In Process Platform, connectors are available for the protocols SNMP and SOAP.
Applications
Consider an E-Commerce site where online ordering is placed for a variety of products. To measure the accuracy in the performance of the site, continuous monitoring of certain run-time parameters is essential. For example, there may arise a need for the administrator to check the number of hits and change the configuration settings if needed.
Operational Management is the process where the administrator continuously monitors and manages the runtime behaviour of the system by accessing the data related to the state of the system, performance statistics, user activities and so on.
By adding JMX support to the tools, a direct plug-in can be created with the Java enabled programs. Several large Management tools like IBM (Tivoli), CA (Unicenter), HP (OpenView) and BMC (Patrol) have added and some of them are in the process of adding JMX support to their tools.
Besides the commercial tools, free management consoles like Sun ships JConsole (part of Java 5), MC4J, JManage and XtremeJ (Eclipse Plug-in) are also available.
Management Interface
Management Interface exposes the business components of an application that requires monitoring and management. The purpose of Management Interface involves collecting performance figures and reading the settings from different components of the application. Developers can create or develop that can be managed and monitored by the administrators from any management console that supports JMX.
The hierarchy of the components in the Managed Beans is described below:
- Attributes: Attributes are the named typed values that can be read and/or written. The attributes can be of primitive types such as int and string or complex
types such as structures and tables.Read-only attributes are often used to expose status information while read/write attributes are used for settings. - Operations: Operations are the methods which can be invoked through JMX. They are defined with a name, parameter list and a return type.
- Notifications: Notifications are the alerts which are used to notify the administrator about the major events in the application. The alerts of Process Platform are exposed as JMX notifications.
The Mbean of the JConsole exposes Managed Component of Process Platform which must be monitored and managed. After connecting to JMX, you can manage and monitor the Managed Components of Process Platform.