Rapid prototyping and development tool for
building Java-based SNMP agents, TL1 agents, and Multi-protocol
agents.
Introduction
WebNMS Agent Toolkit Java Edition is a
productive development environment for building Java-based
Multi-protocol (JMX 1.0) agents. Evolving networks contain
various devices and applications with different management
protocols. Effective management is required for these critical
business resources that need to interact with different managers.
As these resources need to communicate with multiple managers,
information must be exposed via different protocols. Multi-protocol
becomes critical factor in device/application management.
Multi-protocol (JMX) agent offers the flexibility for devices
and applications to interact with legacy and evolving enterprise
applications.
OEMs, enterprises, middleware ISVs, and service
providers need Multi-protocol agent to manage their applications/devices
via standard Network Management Consoles. WebNMS Agent
Toolkit Java Edition's integrated agent development environment
offers standards-based, highly developer productive, and proven
platform to build Multi-protocol (JMX 1.0 compatible) agents
with reduced agent development cycle.
Key Features
JMX 1.0 compatible agent.
Support for SNMP, HTML, RMI, CORBA, HTTP, and TL1 adaptor.
SNMP adaptor that provides complete SNMPv1, SNMPv2c, and
SNMPv3 support.
Cascader Service that offers highly scalable master-subagent
architecture for distributed application management
and leveraging legacy systems.
Discovery service for automatic discovery of other agents
in the network.
Heartbeat support for monitoring sub-agent status.
View-based authorization and authentication support for
providing granular security.
Generic adaptor and enhanced client framework to build
new protocol adaptors and clients.
Out-of-the-box adaptors support.
Client API for RMI, HTTP, and CORBA adaptors.
SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) support for RMI, HTTP, and
HTML Adaptors.
Logging feature to generate log messages at agent runtime.
Developer Benefits
Agent Development Environment: Enhanced and integrated
tools reduce the time to develop multi-protocol agent, increase
the developer productivity, and offers reduced time-to-market.
Standards-based Architecture: Built on standard technologies,
such as JMX, SNMP, TL1, HTML, RMI, CORBA, and XML offers
a viable platform for integration with any standard
management console.
Multi-Protocol Agent Development Experience
Multi-protocol agent offers access to agent information via
other protocols, such as HTTP, RMI, CORBA, and SOAP. Developers
can instrument once and access with any protocol.
Multi-Protocol Agent Development Cycle
Load MIBs in the JMX Compiler.
Generate Multi-protocol agents using JMX Compiler. This
generates the stubs as Java files.
Compile the agent after performing agent instrumentation.
The generated agent is ready to be accessed with any protocol.
Test and verify multi-protocol agents with manager application
tools in the product. (MIB Browser, MBean Browser,
and HTML Browser).
The generated multi-protocol agent can be deployed on any
platform with JVM support and seamlessly integrated with any
Network or Enterprise Management Console.
The following diagram illustrates the steps in agent development
cycle:
Multi-Protocol Agent Runtime Architecture
The Multi-Protocol agent runtime architecture explains the
components and functions.
Multi-Protocol Agent Components
MBeans: MBeans or Managed Bean is a Java object that
represents the JMX-manageable resource. A JMX-manageable resource
is one that is instrumented in accordance with the JMX instrumentation-level
specification.
MBean Server: It is a registry for MBeans in the agent.
It offers services for working with the MBeans.
Adaptors: It allows management applications to access
the Multi-Protocol agent. It is mandatory to have at least
one adaptor for providing Multi-Protocol access.
Any Java application that needs to be managed must be wrapped
as an MBean and registered in an MBean Server. The MBeans
expose the manageable information of an application. Using
a manager application, the exposed data can be accessed through
adaptors. Agent Toolkit Java Edition provides JMX Compiler
to generate MBeans for the manageable resource. It provides
the MBeanServer where all the MBeans get registered and the
necessary adaptors available enable the manager to access
the agent.
Supported Standards
WebNMS Agent Toolkit Java Edition supports the following
standards:
Standards Compatibility
Supported Version
JMX
1.0
SNMP
SNMP v1, SNMP v2c, SNMP v3
TL1
GR831 standard
JDBC
1.1 & 2.0
Java RMI
1.0
CORBA
2.3
HTTP
1.0, 1.1
JSP
1.1
Servlets
2.2
XML
1.0
System Requirements
Hardware Requirements
Processor Speed
400-500 MHz
Memory
128 MB RAM or higher
Hard Drive Space
75 MB
Software Requirements
Supported Platforms
Windows (NT/2000/2003), Solaris, Linux, IBM AIX, HP-UX, and Red
Hat Linux Advanced Server 2.1AS.
