A Pleasanton, Calif., software company has developed a tool kit to simplify the process of preparing applications for monitoring and management.
AdventNet Inc. last week announced ManageEngine Suite 5, aimed at ISVs and corporate developers. The tool automates instrumentation for J2EE (Java 2 Enterprise Edition) applications using the JMX (Java Management Extensions) standard, and it provides tools to build custom consoles and integrate with management consoles such as Hewlett-Packard Co.s OpenView or those from IBMs Tivoli unit.
“We tried to make the instrumentation problem easier—especially for custom applications,” said Tony Thomas, chief technology officer and founder of AdventNet.
The task of instrumenting applications typically falls on developers who dont have the time or expertise necessary. “They have to learn a lot and do a lot to achieve this. Theyd rather not have to deal with it,” said Thomas.
Working with ManageEngine Suite is easy, according to beta tester Mark Carlson, vice president of technology for Nextar Financial Corp., a St. Louis corporate relocation and outsourcing lender.
“My developer picked it up and was productive with the tool within three days without ever having looked at JMX,” said Carlson. “We were exposing methods that already existed in the application. It was not very intrusive into our custom code.”
ManageEngine Suite uses the common instrumentation model in the JMX standard and provides a graphical interface that allows developers to choose application attributes—typically represented as Enterprise JavaBeans—to monitor and measure.
Other vendors have taken the approach of building consoles to manage J2EE Web application servers, such as IBM, with WebSphere, and BEA Systems Inc., with WebLogic, according to Audrey Rasmussen, an analyst with Enterprise Management Associates Inc., in Boulder, Colo.
ManageEngine Suite consists of three components: JMX Studio, Console Builder and Applications Manager.
ManageEngine Suite 5 is due by months end. It is priced at $1,000 per server for JMX Studio. Console Builder costs $5,000 per server. Applications Manager is $15,000 per server.