JMX: Managing J2EE with Java Management Extensions (Java (Sams)) [Paperback]

Marc Fleury (Author), Juha Lindfors (Author), The JBoss Group (Author)

Book Description

Series: Java (Sams) | Publication Date: January 31, 2002

JMX begins by presenting the JMX specification and its architecture. The book quickly moves through the specification, offering examples of JMX integration with J2EE applications. The final section of the book presents JMX management and administration practices for a variety of J2EE platforms and scenarios.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

JMX begins by presenting the JMX specification and its architecture. The book quickly moves through the specification, offering examples of JMX integration with J2EE applications. The final section of the book presents JMX management and administration practices for a variety of J2EE platforms and scenarios.

About the Author

Juha Lindfors got involved with the JBoss J2EE application server in early 2000. While digging into the source, he got a crash course in the JMX API, which was already part of the server core. Today, apart from trying to learn to write, he spends a lot of his time writing free software and training people in JMX and J2EE. The rest of his time is spent trying to figure out what to do when he grows up while studying Computer Science at the University of Helsinki, Finland.

Marc Fleury, Ph.D., was born in Paris in 1968. Marc started in Sales at Sun Microsystems France. A graduate of the Ecole Polytechnique, France's top engineering school, and an ex-Lieutenant in the paratroopers, he has a master in Theoretical Physics from the ENS ULM and a Ph.D in Physics for work he did as a visiting scientist at MIT (X-Ray Lasers). Marc currently serves as the President of the JBoss Group, LLC—an elite services company based out of Atlanta, GA.

The JBoss Group LLC, is a service company dedicated to support, training, and consulting around the free JBoss platform. Based in Atlanta, GA, this LLC regroups core JBoss programmers around the world. JBoss is an open-source, standards-compliant, J2EE application server implemented in 100 percent pure Java. The JBoss/Server and complement of products are delivered under a public license. With 50,000+ downloads per month, JBoss is arguably the most downloaded J2EE-based server in the industry.

Product Details

• Paperback: 408 pages
• Publisher: Sams (January 31, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0672322889
• ISBN-13: 978-0672322884
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,295,573 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars OK Coverage for an Emerging Standard, April 26, 2002

By 

MO (Boulder, CO USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: JMX: Managing J2EE with Java Management Extensions (Java (Sams)) (Paperback)

This book will be of particular interest to you if you're using JBoss as your app server, as JMX forms the fundamental glue used to implement the JBoss server.

The book starts out with some nice introductory coverage for Standard MBeans, which are about the most dirt simple classes to code so I expected some good writing here. From there we start getting into Dynamic MBeans where the fun really begins. I was particularly interested in the implementation of ModelMBeans, which are dynamic MBeans that can map to a resource (like a printer for example) and provide automated attribute caching etc.

While the Dynamic MBean coverage was fairly adequate I was pretty disappointed with the ModelMBean coverage. Not enough time was spent describing all the Info classes and Descriptor attributes you need to implement. I spent a lot of time experimenting, reading the JSRs, and working through a subsequent ModelMBean implementation chapter to figure things out. There are also numerous bugs in the sample code for ModelMBeans.

The Chapter discussing the MBeanServer was a little light but reasonably well done. Enough to help you understand how it works which is all you need to program with anyway.

One sorely lacking area is JMX notifications. The interfaces are briefly mentioned, but there is little by way of sample code, or in depth discussion of the default JMX notifications. Since notifications are based on the AWT Event model you can find plenty of other source material for how the notification mechanism works, but I'd like to see more detail on the JMX standard messages etc.

I enjoyed the JMX standard services section. They were very instructive, and helped indirectly patch together some of the notifcication stuff.

The JBoss chapter is, of course, quite good with detailed information about how JBoss uses JMX, how everything fits together in JBoss with JMX. All in all it's a great case study of what you might do with JMX.

This book was a good introduction to JMX, but I felt it lacking in certain areas of detail. Since there are relatively few JMX books (in fact I think this might be the only one) it's not a waste of money, just not as insghtful as I'd hoped.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good book marred by bad expository style, March 8, 2002

By 

Taruvai Subramaniam (Troy, MI USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: JMX: Managing J2EE with Java Management Extensions (Java (Sams)) (Paperback)

This is the only book available on JMX and the authors makes a diligent effort to explain the subject and they succeed upto a point. The writing is lucid and the treatment is both detailed and comprehensive. It covers all the main topics - the various types of MBeans, Agent services, protocol handlers etc.However the book is marred by an unfortunate expository style.

The authors prefer to go from bottom up from the lowest level of detail whereas most of us would prefer the opposite approach and the reader is likely to keep missing the overall picture. For instance in the chapter on ModelMBeans all the details are covered and only then does the book give a sample program to see what is being talked about. The same problem occurs in the chapter on XBeans. It would have been a lot simpler if the authors had simply shown how to create the MBeanInfo from an XML file which is useful in itself.

This brings up another issue. The authors for some reason feel compelled to drag in irrelevant packages. For instance in parsing the XML file for the XBean they use JDOM. Nothing against JDOM but since we can expect anyone dealing with XML to know DOM this becomes a needless distraction even if a minor one.

Things really come to a head in chapter 9 ( Protocol Handlers) where all these tendencies combine into incoherence.The authors use Dynamic Proxies , Command pattern etc etc. Wow. This chapter would have been a great deal clearer if the authors has spent a page explaining the overall architecture, some sequence diagrams etc.

To summarize, a good reference and a passable introduction for JMX but be prepared to work at it.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The first book on JMX, and the only one you'll need., February 25, 2002

By 

Jason Boutwell (Chapel Hill, NC USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: JMX: Managing J2EE with Java Management Extensions (Java (Sams)) (Paperback)

While it is true that this is currently the only book on the market that tackles the subject of JMX, I can't imagine a better one emerging once the flood of copycat titles hits the shelves. This book was written by experts who code with JMX on a daily basis, the JBoss Group. So many Java books these days are either written by technical writers who have never used the API, or by hardcore programmers with no idea how to write a readable book. I was pleasantly surprised by how easily I was able to pick up the material. I had tried to learn JMX by reading the specification, and it was an excruciating experience. This book doesn't require a Ph.D to understand it (only to write it. ;-)

JMX is not for Java or J2EE newbies, but for someone with solid J2EE experience who is interested in learning what makes a commercial grade application server tick underneath, this book will provide the foundation.

You just can't beat it.

As to the previous reviewer who wonders if anyone else is using JMX besides JBoss, how about BEA? Weblogic is also now based on a JMX framework. As are numerous commercial and open source J2EE products. How are they using this technology? Read this book to find out.