GlassFish EJB Stateful Session Bean Statistics Test

The stateful container manages the stateful session beans, which, by definition, carry the client-specific state. There is a one-to-one relationship between the client and the stateful session beans. At creation, each stateful session bean (SFSB) is given a unique session ID that is used to access the session bean so that an instance of a stateful session bean is accessed by a single client only. Stateful session beans are managed using cache.

This test monitors the stateful container and reports the number and nature of methods that were invoked on the container. In the process, the test reports the status of the stateful session beans - whether they have just been created, are in the 'ready' state, are in the 'passivate' state, or have been removed from the container.

Target of the test : A GlassFish server

Agent deploying the test : An internal/remote agent

Outputs of the test : One set of results for each stateful session bean container configured on the GlassFish Enterprise server being monitored.

Configurable parameters for the test
Parameters	Description
Test Period	How often should the test be executed.
Host	The host for which the test is to be configured.
Port	The port number at which the specified host listens
JMX Remote Port	To collect metrics from a GlassFish Enterprise server, the eG agent monitoring that server should be configured to use JMX to connect to the JRE used by the server and pull out the metrics of interest. By default, JMX support is enabled for the JRE used by the GlassFish Enterprise Server. The JMX connector listens on port 8686 by default. Therefore, type 8686 as the JMX Remote Port. If JMX listens on a different port in your environment, then specify the same here. To know the port at which JMX listens, open the domain.xml file in the <GLASSFISH_INSTALL_DIR>\Sun\AppServer\domains\domain1\config directory and look for the code block shown below: <jmx-connector accept-all="false" address="0.0.0.0" auth-realm-name="admin-realm" enabled="true" name="system" port="8686" protocol="rmi_jrmp" security-enabled="false"> The port number specified against the Port parameter in the code block above refers to the JMX Remote Port.
JMX User, JMX Password, and Confirm Password	By default, the JMX connector on the GlassFish Enterprise Server requires authentication. To enable the eG agent to use JMX therefore, you need to configure the agent with the credentials of a user who is authorized to use JMX. Typically, the GlassFish administrator has the right to use JMX. You can hence configure the JMX User and JMX Password parameters with the credentials of the administrator. However, if you prefer not to expose the credentials of an administrator owing to security considerations, you can use the credentials of any other user with access rights to JMX. To know the name of such a user, open the domain.xml file in the <GLASSFISH_INSTALL_DIR>\Sun\AppServer\domains\domain1\config directory and look for the code block shown below: <jmx-connector accept-all="false" address="0.0.0.0" auth-realm-name="admin-realm" enabled="true" name="system" port="8686" protocol="rmi_jrmp" security-enabled="false"> The user name specified against the auth-realm-name parameter in the code block above can be configured as the JMX User, and the Password of that user can be specified against JMX Password. Confirm the JMX Password you specify by retyping that password in the Confirm Password text box.
JNDIName	The JNDIName is a lookup name for connecting to the JMX connector. By default, this is jmxrmi. If you have registered the JMX connector in the RMI registry using a different lookup name, then you can change this default value to reflect the same.
JMX Provider	This test uses a JMX Provider to access the MBean attributes of the GlassFish Enterprise server and collect metrics. Specify the package name of this JMX Provider here. By default, this is set to com.sun.jmx.remote.protocol.
Timeout	Specify the duration (in seconds) for which this test should wait for a response from the GlassFish Enterprise server. If there is no response from the server beyond the configured duration, the test will timeout. By default, this is set to 240 seconds.

Measurements made by the test
Measurement	Description	Measurement Unit	Interpretation
Create method calls	Indicates the number of times the create method was invoked on this container.	Number
Ready method calls	Indicates the number of times in the last measurement period the 'Ready' method was invoked on this container.	Number	A bean in the cache represents the ready state in the EJB lifecycle. This means that the bean has an identity (for example, a primary key or session ID) associated with it.
Beans in passivate state	Indicates the number of beans in this container that were in the passivate state during the last measurement period.	Number	Beans moving out of the cache have to be passivated or destroyed according to the EJB lifecycle. Once passivated, a bean has to be activated to come back into the cache. Typically, bean passivation occurs when the max-cache-size setting is exceeded and the cache overflows. A bean is also passivated if it outlives the cache-idle-timeout-in-seconds settings.
Remove method calls	Indicates the number of number of times the 'remote' method was invoked on the beans in this container during the last measurement period.	Number	If a stateful session bean remains idle in the backup store for a duration beyond the configured removal-timeout-in-seconds, then it is removed from the backup store and will not be accessible to the client. The default value is 60 minutes.