JMX Based Monitoring - Part Two - JVM Monitoring
- by Anthony Shorten
This the second article in the series focussing on the JMX based monitoring capabilities possible with the Oracle Utilities Application Framework.
In all versions of the Oracle utilities Application Framework, it is possible to use the basic JMX based monitoring available with the Java Virtual Machine to provide basic statistics ablut the JVM.
In Java 5 and above, the JVM automatically allowed local monitoring of the JVM statistics from an approporiate console. When I say local I mean the monitoring tool must be executed from the same machine (and in some cases the same user that is running the JVM) to connect to the JVM directly. If you are using jconsole, for example, then you must have access to a GUI (X-Windows or Windows) to display the jconsole output. This is the easist way of monitoring without doing too much configration but is not always practical.
Java offers a remote monitorig capability to allow yo to connect to a remotely executing JVM from a console (like jconsole). To use this facility additional JVM options must be added to the command line that started the JVM. Details of the additional options for the version of the Java you are running is located at the JMX information site.
Typically to remotely connect to a running JVM that JVM must be configured with the following categories of options:
JMX Port - The JVM must allow connections on a listening port specified on the command line
Connection security - The connection to the JVM can be secured. This is recommended as JMX is not just a monitoring protocol it is a managemet protocol. It is possible to change values in a running JVM using JMX and there are NO "Are you sure?" safeguards.
For a Oracle Utilities Application Framework based application there are a few guidelines when configuring and using this JMX based remote monitoring of the JVM's:
Online JVM - The JVM used to run the online system is embedded within the J2EE Web Application Server. To enable JMX monitoring on this JVM you can either change the startup script that starts the Web Application Server or check whether your J2EE Web Application natively supports JVM statistics collection.
Child JVM's (COBOL only) - The Child JVM's should not be monitored using this method as they are recycled regularly by the configuration and therefore statistics collected are of little value.
Batch Threadpoools - Batch already has a JMX interface (which will be covered in another article). Additional monitoring can be enabled but the base supported monitoring is sufficient for most needs.
If you are an Oracle Utilities Application Framework site, then you can specify the additional options for JMX Java monitoring on the OPTS paramaters supported for each component of the architecture. Just ensure the port numbers used are unique for each JVM running on any machine.
