Objective
The aim of the JavaMBean Polling (JMX) tool is to enable JMX polling to access and monitor the following MBean application servers:
Java Management Extensions (JMX) a trademark of Sun Microsystems, is a Java technology that supplies tools for managing and monitoring applications, system objects, devices (e.g. printers), and service oriented networks. Those resources are represented by objects called MBeans (for Managed Bean).
JMX Architecture
Java Management Extensions (JMX) technology provides the tools for building distributed, Web-based, modular and dynamic solutions for managing and monitoring devices, applications, and service-driven networks. Starting with J2SE 5.0, JMX technology is included in Java SE.
JMX is based on 3-level architecture:
| • | The Probe level: contains the probes (called MBeans) instrumenting the resources. It is also known as the instrumentation level. |
| • | The Agent level: the MBeanServer is the core of JMX. It is an intermediary between the MBean and the applications. |
| • | The Remote Management level: enables remote applications to access the MBeanServer through Connectors and Adaptors. A connector provides full remote access to the MBeanServer API using various communication frameworks such as RMI, IIOP, JMS, WS-*; while an adaptor adapts the API to another protocol (SNMP) or to Web-based GUI (HTML/HTTP, WML/HTTP…) |
Applications can be generic consoles (such as JConsole and MC4J), or domain-specific (monitoring) applications.
MBeans and Platform MBean Servers
An MBean server is a repository of MBeans that provides management applications access to MBeans. An MBean is nothing but a java object that represents a manageable resource, such as an application, a service, a component, or a device. For example you could represent your laptop as an MBean and then "monitor" it.
Applications do not access MBeans directly, but instead access them through the MBean server with their unique ObjectName. An MBean server implements the interface javax.management. MBeanServer
Monitoring Studio and MBeans
With the JMX polling feature of Monitoring Studio, you can easily monitor the above-mentioned application servers and consolidate the monitoring of these MBeanServers along with the application monitoring under a single icon. You need no longer to interrogate the various application servers through their respective interfaces just to view the status of the MBeans.
A management application can access platform MBeans in different ways:
| • | Using MBean ServerConnection |
Monitoring Studio uses the MBeanServerConnection method to connect to the MBeanServer platform of a running JVM. In this method, you use the getAttribute () method of MBeanServerConnection to get an attribute of a platform MBean, providing the MBean's ObjectName and the attribute name as parameters.
 Monitoring Studio can only poll the application servers and display the MBeans attributes and values. To create and register new MBeans or modify existing ones, you are required to do so using the specific application server interface.
Method (summary)
To setup the monitoring and consolidate the querying of resources represented by MBeans within your PATROL environment, all you need to do is go through the JMX wizard of Monitoring Studio. The wizard panels differ for each type of JMX application server, the following is just a summary of the overall method.
| 1. | Right-click the main Monitored Application icon > KM Commands > New > Java MBean polling (JMX) |
| 6. | Click Next; ensure that all the settings are accurate. |
| 7. | If the credentials entered are correct, Monitoring Studio connects to the application server and presents a list of domains for you to select from. |
| 8. | Select the domain to monitor and click Next. |
| 9. | Specify the key property to monitor from this domain and click Next. |
| 10. | Select the attribute from the list and click Next. You can only select one attribute at a time. To monitor several attributes of the same key property, you are required to go through the wizard each time. |
| 11. | Click Finish. You can add a string or numeric value search if you wish. |
Once a JMX polling is configured, Monitoring Studio uses that JMX Polling configuration by default whenever you add a new Java MBean Polling. This way, you do not have to re-enter the configuration settings each time.
 The above-mentioned instructions give an overview of the procedure to poll a JMX server. Please refer to the section on a specific application server for exact details and procedure. You can also consult the Input variables for JMX polling wizards section to know what input is required for which type of application server.
See Also
JBoss
JOnAS
Numeric Value extraction
String Search
SW_JMX
WebLogic
WebSphere
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