...using jolokia to monitor/manage SwitchYard

Install jolokia

Get the latest jolokia war file from their website, rename it to jolokia.war and deploy it into the server.

Get a list of all SwitchYard MBeans

All SwitchYard MBeans are registered under the org.switchyard.admin JMX domain name, as per thedocumentation. So we can get a list of what we have:

http://localhost:8080/jolokia/list/org.switchyard.admin

or a description of an MBean:

http://localhost:8080/jolokia/list/org.switchyard.admin/name=%22_OrderService_soap_1%22,service=%22%7Burn:switchyard-quickstart:bean-service:0.1.0%7DOrderService%22,type=Binding

As it is mentioned on the documentation, there are different types of MBeans:

• Application: Management interface for a SwitchYard application.
• Service: Management interface for a composite service in a SwitchYard application. One MBean is registered per composite service.
• Reference: Management interface for a composite reference in a SwitchYard application. One MBean is registered per composite reference.
• Binding: Management interface for a gateway binding attached to a composite service or reference. One MBean is registered per binding instance on an application’s composite services and references.
• ComponentService: Management interface for a component service in a SwitchYard application. One MBean is registered per component service.
• ComponentReference: Management interface for a component reference in a SwitchYard application. One MBean is registered per component reference.
• Transformer: Management interface for a transformer in a SwitchYard application. One MBean is registered per transformer.
• Validator: Management interface for a validator in a SwitchYard application. One MBean is registered per validator.
• Throttling: Management interface for throttling a service in a SwitchYard application. One ThrottlingMBean is registered per composite service instance.

There are two additional MBean objects, that are superclasses, that define custom behavior.

• Lifecycle: Supertype of BindingMXBean which provides operations related to lifecycle control for service and reference bindings.
• Metris: Supertype of multiple MBeans providing message metrics information.

Starting/Stopping bindings

As service and reference bindings extends the Lifecycle MXBean, we can start or stop a binding, and know in what state they are:

• Check the state

http://localhost:8080/jolokia/read/org.switchyard.admin:name=%22_OrderService_soap_1%22,service=%22%7Burn:switchyard-quickstart:bean-service:0.1.0%7DOrderService%22,type=Binding/State

• Stop the binding

http://localhost:8080/jolokia/exec/org.switchyard.admin:name=%22_OrderService_soap_1%22,service=%22%7Burn:switchyard-quickstart:bean-service:0.1.0%7DOrderService%22,type=Binding/start

• Check the state

http://localhost:8080/jolokia/read/org.switchyard.admin:name=%22_OrderService_soap_1%22,service=%22%7Burn:switchyard-quickstart:bean-service:0.1.0%7DOrderService%22,type=Binding/State

• Start the binding

http://localhost:8080/jolokia/exec/org.switchyard.admin:name=%22_OrderService_soap_1%22,service=%22%7Burn:switchyard-quickstart:bean-service:0.1.0%7DOrderService%22,type=Binding/start

• Check the state

http://localhost:8080/jolokia/read/org.switchyard.admin:name=%22_OrderService_soap_1%22,service=%22%7Burn:switchyard-quickstart:bean-service:0.1.0%7DOrderService%22,type=Binding/State

Geting metrics

If you want to get metrics, it is very simple, the only thing is that you need to know which metrics are worth for you, as every component, composite and binding provides with many metrics. Once you know what information you need, you can use jolokia to get the information, and maybe use that information to feed an ElasticSearch or InfluxDB database, and use Kibana/Graphana to view the information in a graphical way, and explore this information. Also RTGov is available.

• Get all the information available for a binding

http://localhost:8080/jolokia/read/org.switchyard.admin:name=%22_OrderService_soap_1%22,service=%22%7Burn:switchyard-quickstart:bean-service:0.1.0%7DOrderService%22,type=Binding

• Get the TotalCount for a binding

http://localhost:8080/jolokia/read/org.switchyard.admin:name=%22_OrderService_soap_1%22,service=%22%7Burn:switchyard-quickstart:bean-service:0.1.0%7DOrderService%22,type=Binding/TotalCount

Getting metrics from multiple MBeans

You might want to get some metrics for more than one MBean. You can use wildcards for this, and knowing which types of MBeans and information you want is very easy.

http://localhost:8080/jolokia/read/org.switchyard.admin:name=*,service=*,type=Binding/MinProcessingTime

• More complex pattern

http://localhost:8080/jolokia/read/org.switchyard.admin:name=%22*soap*%22,service=*,type=Binding/MinProcessingTime

Search the MBeans you care for

When you have many apps deployed, you might not know which MBeans are there, and their ObjectNames. You can search for them:

http://localhost:8080/jolokia/search/org.switchyard.admin:type=Binding,*

Demo

If you want to test this, I have created a Dockerfile that you can use right away, based on the latest SwitchYard image. It is available here.

You just need to get this file, and build the image:

curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jorgemoralespou/fsw-demo/master/monitoring-with-jolokia/Dockerfile -o Dockerfile
docker build --rm -t "switchyard-with-jolokia"

And then run it:

docker run -it --rm -p 8080:8080 -p 9990:9990 switchyard-with-jolokia