1.3 Management Technologies

Several different types of management systems are currently available: vendor-specific management systems that manage a particular product set, homogenizing management systems that hide management of dissimilar systems under a standard interface, and network management systems that manage the connections between systems and users. All of these types of management systems from different vendors have been implemented through different protocols and technologies. This variety is illustrated by a survey of proprietary and standard management technologies in use by management products today.

1.3.1 Proprietary Technologies

Many vendor management systems use proprietary technologies. Many operating systems, such as IBM's System/390 ^[21] and Microsoft's SMS ^[22] have their own proprietary, and usually tightly coupled , management system and infrastructure. They provide their own information model, communication model, and services.

The dominant enterprise management systems by Tivoli, Computer Associates, and BMC Software are homogenizing management systems that manage diverse and distributed resources. They each use their own, proprietary technology for their distributed management infrastructure, including manager-to-agent communications. These enterprise management system vendors compete on three fronts:

1. The management system infrastructure and capabilities

2. The services for installation and customization

3. The set of products and applications they can monitor and manage

Management systems that use proprietary technologies may use any of the management architectures already described or their own unique organizational models.

1.3.2 Standard Technologies

1.3.2.1 SNMP

Data network management systems for TCP/IP networks use predominantly the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP). ^[23] SNMP is a de facto standard for device and network management. However, it has not been widely deployed for application management. It was developed as a temporary solution for management until CMIP was completed. It is part of the IETF's Management Architecture ^[24] which also defines the System Management Interface (SMI) ^[25] communication model and standardizes the information model in MIBs ^[26] for network, device, and some system resources. Hewlett-Packard's OpenView ^[27] and Tivoli's Netview ^[28] are popular SNMP-based network management products today. SNMP-based management systems use the manager-agent architecture, including the subagent and midlevel manager roles, that we have discussed.

1.3.2.2 CMIP

Telecommunications network management products often use Common Management Information Protocol (CMIP). ^[29] CMIP was developed by the International Standards Organization (ISO) ^[30] as a standard protocol for a larger standard management architecture called OSI/TMN. ^[31] TMN also has its own information model and operations model. It did not displace SNMP as expected. Sun Microsystems, BullSoft, ^[32] and Hewlett-Packard all provided network management products that support CMIP. CMIP-based management systems usually use manager-agent architectures.

1.3.2.3 CIM/WBEM

The Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) ^[33] defines a Common Information Model (CIM) as a standard information model for describing management data about the devices, networks, systems, and applications of computer systems. An agent that supports this model is called a CIM object manager ( CIMOM ). The DMTF also defined the communication model to be Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM) ^[34] that defines CIM operations as an interface to the model, an XML representation (CIM.DTD) used to represent the CIM model in XML, and a mapping to transport the CIM operations with the XML CIM model data over HTTP. This entire combination of CIM and XML-based protocol to the CIMOM is collectively referred to as CIM/WBEM.

Although the device and system models are fairly complete, the application model is still a work in progress. This is still an emerging technology, but Microsoft's SMS ^[35] and Sun Solstice do provide support and managers for it. WBEMsource ^[36] is an open-source community for CIM/WBEM implementations in both C++ and Java. The Open Group publishes Pegasus, ^[37] an open-source C++ implementation of the CIM/WBEM standard. Sun and other vendors publish Java implementations that conform to the APIs defined by Sun's WBEM service Java Specification Request (JSR) 48. ^[38]

CIM/WBEM systems are generally implemented in a manager-agent architecture and don't use MLMs. Work is in progress to standardize an interface for resources to provide data to the CIMOM, a provider interface. When this work is complete, these providers will function in a subagent role and CIM/WBEM will support the manager-agent-subagent architecture as well.

1.3.2.4 JMX

Java Management Extensions (JMX) defines a Java technology that supports management services for any Java technology “based resource. JMX defines extensions of the Java language that will allow any Java technology “based resource to be inherently manageable, as well as Java interfaces to existing management technologies. JMX is used by the resource to make itself manageable by a management system. JMX is basically an isolation and mediation layer between manageable resources and management systems.

JMX-based management systems that are based on the current specification support the basic manager-agent architecture. Unlike SNMP and CIM/WBEM, JMX deliberately does not define a management information model. JMX provides the agent with the JMX agent, or MBeanServer ”which will be discussed in detail later. Depending on the adapters available to other management agents , the JMX agent can be viewed in the agent role or subagent role. If the JMX adapter communicates directly with the management system, it is functioning in an agent role. If the JMX adapter communicates with an agent for the management system, then it is functioning in a subagent role. The JMX instrumentation API is the communication model and provides the interface used by the managed application, as well as the management system to communicate with the management agent. The JMX Expert Group is currently working to standardize connections between JMX agents and between JMX agents and managers. When this work is done, JMX will be able to support manager-MLM-agent-subagent architectures by federating JMX agents.

Sun Microsystem's JDMK ^[39] includes a JMX implementation and simple management console to support it. Tivoli's TMX4J ^[40] implements the JMX specification as well and is used by numerous other IBM products.

1.3.2.5 AIC

Application Information and Control (AIC), ^[41] from The Open Group's Enterprise Management program, is a C language and Java API for exposing application metrics and thresholds. AIC is not as comprehensive or as flexible as JMX. It does not support all the aspects of resource and application management that require relationships, operations, and resource grouping. It is a relatively new standard and has not seen any widespread adoption yet.

1.3.2.6 ARM

Application Response Measurement (ARM) ^[42] with a Java API is also from The Open Group's enterprise management program. It focuses on capturing the amount of time it takes to perform units of work inside applications. The ARM standard is supported by products from both Tivoli Systems and Hewlett-Packard, but widespread instrumentation of resources to report ARM data has yet to occur.

So far we have discussed just a few of the challenges and complexities facing enterprises trying to manage their information systems. And as if managing diversity and wide geographic distribution weren't enough, they also have to deal with understanding and deploying the different technologies used for management. Although there is a dominant technology for network management, that luxury does not exist for systems and application management. There is no broadly accepted or implemented technology, standard or otherwise , for managing Java applications. This situation begs for a unifying technology like JMX. As we introduce JMX in the next chapter, you'll see how it helps simplify some of this complexity.