Problem:

• Product Name: Borland Application Server
• Product Version: 6.5
• Product Component: Management Tool
• Platform/OS Version: All
• JDK/Compiler Version: 1.4.2, 1.5.0

How to use JMX Interface to monitor Borland Application Server?

Resolution:

As Borland Enterprise Server hosts a fully functional JMX agent based on MX4J, customer may want to use JMX Interface to monitor BES Partition. Furthermore, there may be a scenario in which customer wants to write a standalone java client which is part of a monitoring system to monitor BES partition. This article will try to address all the possible ways to monitor BES partition using JMX Interface.

Unfortunately, the JMX implementation in BES6.5 does not expose so many statistics. Even for BAS 6.6, the implementation on the Web Container is lacking (compared with EJB layer).
The only information/statistics that will be available to the standalone clients are those already listed in the JMX Console. Customer may want to run the JMX Console from Borland Management Console or run an standalone JMX Console to see the details on the AppServer information that are being exposed.

Following is the discussion on the possible ways of using JMX interface to monitor BES Partition:

1. Using the MC4J JMX Console.
   MC4J Management Console, is provided as a 3rd party management option for JMX-enabled objects such as the BES Partition. To start the JMX console, right-click on a Partition (or other J2EE server) and select Launch JMX Console. This will require the customer to use Borland Management Console.
2. Launching the JMX console standalone.
   Under BES, this can be accomplished in 2 ways: using the JMX Service URL or using the BES Smart Agent. This approach does not require running the Borland Management Console. For more details, please refer to "JMX Console" section in "AppServer User's Guide"
   
3. Using the HTTP adaptor to monitor JMX-enabled objects
   You may also enable HTTP Adaptor under partition.xml that will enable you to monitor the available statistics through a web browser. For more details, please refer to Configuring the JMX Agent section at the following documentation: "Partition-> JMX" section in "AppServer User's Guide". 
   
4. Write a standalone java client.
   It is also possible to write a daemon program to periodically monitor BES Partition. One possible scenario in which customer might want to write a standalone java client to monitor BES partition is when they want to write a general monitoring systems to monitor a number of servers including Borland Application Server. For more details, please refer to FAQ.

Please download the attach My65JMXClient.zip for sample standalone client. Please update setcp.bat & client_up.properties accordingly. Before running the client application using run.bat, please ensure that BES 6.5 is up and running.

Author: Mathius Allo
Date : 10/04/2007