IBM Tivoli Composite Application Manager for Application Diagnostics, Version 7.1.0.1
Agent for J2EE
The ITCAM Agent for J2EE component provides monitoring, diagnostics, and server management for servers running any supported J2EE application server software, including IBM WebSphere Community Edition, or J2SE programs. This agent supports Windows, Linux, and UNIX systems.
The following application servers are supported:
- IBM WebSphere Community Edition
- JBoss
- NetWeaver
- Oracle Application Server
- Sun Java System Application Server (JSAS)
- Tomcat
- WebLogic
Also, stand-alone J2SE programs can be monitored.
For the exact versions of the application servers supported by the ITCAM for Application Diagnostics J2EE Agent component, see IBM Tivoli Composite Application Manager for Application Diagnostics: Prerequisites.
data collector
The data collector runs on every monitored host, and is configured for each instance of the application server.
The data collector collects monitoring and diagnostics information from the application server using the following methods:
- In Byte Code Instrumentation (BCI), the data collector injects monitoring calls into the Java code that processes application requests. Data is collected on request processing time and on different types of J2EE API calls within each request. These requests are sometimes referred to as nested requests. BCI monitoring requirements can be different. On a production system request level monitoring might be sufficient; however, on a test or development system, or when a problem is being investigated, BCI can be used to instrument application method entry and exit, synchronized methods, and object allocation. BCI uses a certain amount of system resources, depending on the amount of injected calls. The level of detail, and thus the use of resources, is determined by the monitoring level, which can be set for every monitored application server. With IBM Tivoli Monitoring, levels L1 and L2 are supported; with ITCAM for Application Diagnostics Managing Server, the additional level L3 is available. The monitoring level can be set for each application server instance, independently for IBM Tivoli Monitoring and the Managing Server.
- Java Management Extension (JMX) is used by most application servers to provide performance monitoring information.
- Garbage Collection logs are written by the application server and contain detailed information about the garbage collection process. Such information can be useful for application monitoring and enhancement. Some application servers provide these logs as files, while others use an API.
The data collector sends the information to the monitoring agent. It can also be configured to send it to the Managing Server.
Monitoring Agent
The Monitoring Agent runs on every monitored host.
The Monitoring Agent collects information from the data collector, processes the information, and aggregates it for presentation to the user. It also parses application server logs. For some application servers, the monitoring agent uses JMX to retrieve performance information; with other application servers, the monitoring agent relies on the data collector for this information.
The Monitoring Agent sends monitoring information to the Tivoli Enterprise Monitoring Server. It also receives Take Action commands from the Tivoli Enterprise Monitoring Server. When these commands involve server management actions (for example, starting, stopping, or restarting the application server), the monitoring agent performs these actions.
Parent topic:
Agents