[hyades-dev] WAS data collection agent

[george.christelis@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Hi all, 

We are building a data collection agent to retrieve performance counters 
from WebSphere Application Server, possibly via a http servlet. Any 
feedback you may have on the proposed agent would be appreciated. 

Server performance counters will be monitored remotely and will allow 
for pluggable transports while not replicating any server specific 
packages. Querying the Pmi counters must therefore be performed server 
side, possibly by a deployed servlet which will connect to the 
application server and retrieve the requested performance data. This 
data will then be transferred to the datacollection agent via 
SOAP/HTTP(S). This seems to be the cleanest and most effective way of 
implementing the link between the server JVM and the agent. The typical 
behaviour of this counter monitoring would be as follows:

- The client side will create a connection using a specific transport 
(RAC, etc..) and the resource agent will be launched. 
- The resource agent will load a WSAS Collection DLL, in much the same 
way as the current Perfmon agent loads sysperf.dll. 
- The Collection DLL is then responsible for creating a SOAP/HTTP(S) 
connection to the Pmi/Jmx servlet on the server.
- The servlet queries the Pmi counters and returns the statistical data 
via the HTTP connection.

Ideally, a direct SOAP connection from the Collection DLL to the Servers 
SOAP connector would bypass the need for the servlet. Is the schema for 
the WebSphere SOAP connector available? Does anyone have any information 
on this?

Thanks,
	George