Monitoring JBoss Application Servers

Once the components are deployed on the JBoss server, the eG agent periodically executes tests on the server to capture the statistics collected by the components, and reports them to the eG manager. These tests are mapped to specific layers of the JBoss application server's layer model (see Figure 1).

Figure 1 : The layer model of a JBoss application server

Note:

The JBoss monitoring model provided by eG Enterprise (see Figure 1) can be used to monitor a JBoss server (versions 4.0 and 4.2.3), in an agent-based or an agentless manner.

The measures reported by the tests enable JBoss administrators to make accurate performance judgments with respect to the following:

JVM heap monitoring	How much memory has been allocated to the JVM heap? Is adequate free memory available in the JVM heap?
Request processing capability Monitoring	Is the server taking too long to process requests? Are too many errors encountered by the server during request processing? Is the server overloaded with requests?
Thread pool monitoring	How many threads are currently busy? Does the server appear to be handling too much load? Are there adequate spare threads in the pool for future processing requirements? Does the thread pool require resizing?
Connection pool monitoring	Are enough connections available in the connection pool, or do more connections have to be allotted to the pool?
Servlet monitoring	How frequently was the servlet invoked? Does the servlet take too long to execute?
EJB monitoring	How frequently are EJBs created/removed? Are there any EJBs that are ready to service clients? How many EJBs are currently in the EJB pool?
Messaging service monitoring	Are too many messages have been enqueued? How quickly does the queue process messages within?
Topic monitoring	Does the topic take too long to process messages? What type of messages are currently available in the topic - durable or non-durable? How many durable subscribers are there to a topic?

The sections to come will indulge in an elaborate discussion of the top 6 layers of the layer model depicted by Figure 1. As the other layers have been dealt with in great detail in the Monitoring Unix and Windows Servers document.