3.3 Design Guidelines

MBeans are Java classes, so all the normal rules of good class design apply directly to their design. There are, however, a few special considerations to keep in mind when you're designing MBeans to represent resources:

• Keep the management interfaces for similar resources similar. Creating radically different interfaces for resources that aren't that different will make achieving consistency in your management applications difficult.

• Remember that your resource's management interface will be exposed to management applications. Making application functionality ”for example, the release() and reserve() methods of the "Quick Tour's" SessionPool ” part of the management interface will at best confuse administrators and at worst make your resource unstable.

• Keep the attribute types and operation parameters simple. Administrators may be accessing your MBean via a GUI where it isn't feasible to input complex objects.