Instrumentation, anyone?

[Gianugo Rabellino <gi...@apache.org>]

It was a long time since I last used the Avalon instrumentation stuff, 
but it just seems like it's not working anymore. I'm following the 
provided instructions under tools/instrumentation, something is 
listening on port 15555 as expected but the GUI seems just to sleep in a 
"Not connected" status (and tcpdump shows very little, if any, traffic 
on that port). Am I overlooking something?

More in general, I'm wondering what is the overall status of 
instrumentation and checking for community interest on this particular 
topic. I don't quite understand what is the status in Avalon-land of the 
instrumentation thingy, but it doesn't seem quite active.

OTOH, I start to think that this proprietary instrumentation is a 
dead-end since it seems pretty clear that JMX is the way to go. I'm 
wondering if there is any interest (and kowledgeable people) in 
JMX-enabling Cocoon (for monitoring and management purposes only). I 
think that Cocoon deployments could benefit quite a bit from being 
properly instrumented.

Opinions?

-- 
Gianugo Rabellino
Pro-netics s.r.l. -  http://www.pro-netics.com
Orixo, the XML business alliance - http://www.orixo.com
     (Blogging at: http://www.rabellino.it/blog/)

Re: Instrumentation, anyone?

[Sylvain Wallez <sy...@apache.org>]

Gianugo Rabellino wrote:

> Carsten Ziegeler wrote:
>
>> Yes, JMX is imho the way to go, so a general +1. I don't have
>> much knowledge of JMX, but I would assistent and help in such
>> an effort whereever I can.
>>
>> The simple question is only, which version we would use as base,
>> I would suggest 2.2.
>
>
> It really depends on how far we are from 2.2. I don't want to sound 
> pessimistic, and I must confess that I'm the first one lagging behind 
> the Fortress migration, but I have an overall feeling that we are 
> still quite far away, and I think that we could use something ASAP.
>
> I'm no JMX expert at all, but I understand that basic JMX support can 
> be easily "piggybacked" on existing code, as long as you're basically 
> happy with monitoring and small management tasks: more important needs 
> might require significant changes to the code base, so if I were to 
> draw a plan I would say that we _might_ include some JMX code right 
> now and that we _should_ plan JMX support for 2.2, even if that 
> requires some refactoring. I have the feeling that a complex 
> application like Cocoon really could use some management tools.


+1.

I once tried to understand the communication between the instrument 
manager and instrument client, but totally got lost in AltRMI stuff.

But the basing Instrument and InstrumentManager stuff seems quite 
simple, and maybe the quickest way towards JMX compliance is to consider 
the instruments as the MBeans. I don't have much JMX experience, though...

Sylvain

-- 
Sylvain Wallez                                  Anyware Technologies
http://www.apache.org/~sylvain           http://www.anyware-tech.com
{ XML, Java, Cocoon, OpenSource }*{ Training, Consulting, Projects }

RE: Instrumentation, anyone?

[Carsten Ziegeler <cz...@s-und-n.de>]

Gianugo Rabellino wrote:
> 
> Carsten Ziegeler wrote:
> 
> > Yes, JMX is imho the way to go, so a general +1. I don't have much 
> > knowledge of JMX, but I would assistent and help in such an effort 
> > whereever I can.
> > 
> > The simple question is only, which version we would use as base, I 
> > would suggest 2.2.
> 
> It really depends on how far we are from 2.2. I don't want to 
> sound pessimistic, and I must confess that I'm the first one 
> lagging behind the Fortress migration, but I have an overall 
> feeling that we are still quite far away, 

:), yes this might be true.

> and I think that we 
> could use something ASAP.
Sure

> 
> I'm no JMX expert at all, but I understand that basic JMX 
> support can be easily "piggybacked" on existing code, as long 
> as you're basically happy with monitoring and small 
> management tasks: more important needs might require 
> significant changes to the code base, so if I were to draw a 
> plan I would say that we _might_ include some JMX code right 
> now and that we _should_ plan JMX support for 2.2, even if 
> that requires some refactoring. I have the feeling that a 
> complex application like Cocoon really could use some 
> management tools.
> 
Sounds like a good plan!

Carsten

Re: Instrumentation, anyone?

[Gianugo Rabellino <gi...@apache.org>]

Carsten Ziegeler wrote:

> Yes, JMX is imho the way to go, so a general +1. I don't have
> much knowledge of JMX, but I would assistent and help in such
> an effort whereever I can.
> 
> The simple question is only, which version we would use as base,
> I would suggest 2.2.

It really depends on how far we are from 2.2. I don't want to sound 
pessimistic, and I must confess that I'm the first one lagging behind 
the Fortress migration, but I have an overall feeling that we are still 
quite far away, and I think that we could use something ASAP.

I'm no JMX expert at all, but I understand that basic JMX support can be 
easily "piggybacked" on existing code, as long as you're basically happy 
with monitoring and small management tasks: more important needs might 
require significant changes to the code base, so if I were to draw a 
plan I would say that we _might_ include some JMX code right now and 
that we _should_ plan JMX support for 2.2, even if that requires some 
refactoring. I have the feeling that a complex application like Cocoon 
really could use some management tools.

Ciao,

-- 
Gianugo Rabellino
Pro-netics s.r.l. -  http://www.pro-netics.com
Orixo, the XML business alliance - http://www.orixo.com
     (Blogging at: http://www.rabellino.it/blog/)

RE: Instrumentation, anyone?

[Carsten Ziegeler <cz...@s-und-n.de>]

Gianugo Rabellino wrote:
> 
> It was a long time since I last used the Avalon 
> instrumentation stuff, but it just seems like it's not 
> working anymore. I'm following the provided instructions 
> under tools/instrumentation, something is listening on port 
> 15555 as expected but the GUI seems just to sleep in a "Not 
> connected" status (and tcpdump shows very little, if any, 
> traffic on that port). Am I overlooking something?
> 
> More in general, I'm wondering what is the overall status of 
> instrumentation and checking for community interest on this 
> particular topic. I don't quite understand what is the status 
> in Avalon-land of the instrumentation thingy, but it doesn't 
> seem quite active.
> 
It's not an official statement but I think I read on the Avalon
dev list that instrumentation is dead, perhaps I'm wrong.

> OTOH, I start to think that this proprietary instrumentation 
> is a dead-end since it seems pretty clear that JMX is the way 
> to go. I'm wondering if there is any interest (and 
> kowledgeable people) in JMX-enabling Cocoon (for monitoring 
> and management purposes only). I think that Cocoon 
> deployments could benefit quite a bit from being properly 
> instrumented.
> 
Yes, JMX is imho the way to go, so a general +1. I don't have
much knowledge of JMX, but I would assistent and help in such
an effort whereever I can.

The simple question is only, which version we would use as base,
I would suggest 2.2.

Carsten