Java Management Extensions

How Do Standard MBeans Work?

In this section, we will learn how to instrument a Java class as a standard MBean. We will first look at how to describe the management interface according to the JMX design patterns for standard MBeans. Then we will look at how to implement the MBean interface on the Queue class touched on earlier in this chapter. Many examples will be provided. It is here that we will examine all of the classes that make up the application, showing inheritance patterns and other cool standard MBean miscellany. We will also look at the Controller class’s main( ) routine, which is what drives the application, and we will discuss how to register MBeans with the MBean server, how to register and use the HTML Adaptor server, and how to build and run the example.

Describing the Management Interface

JMX provides us with a set of patterns to follow when instrumenting our application resources as standard MBeans. If we follow these patterns exactly as they are set out in the specification, our standard MBeans are said to be compliant. If we don’t correctly follow the patterns, the MBean server (part of the reference implementation; we’ll discuss the MBean server later in this chapter) will declare our MBean as noncompliant by throwing a javax.management.NotCompliantMBeanException at the agent that attempts to register the MBean. However, it is possible for us to correctly follow the patterns but still not expose the correct management interface on our standard MBean. We will ...