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Create automated and distributed management applications with Jiro technology

With Sun's new Jiro technology, you can develop sophisticated Java and Jini-based applications that manage distributed resources

By Mark A. Carlson, JavaWorld.com, 02/01/00

Even though events are generated for such problems as failures, performance crises, and capacity limitations, the sheer number of these events in any reasonably sized environment can make it difficult to understand the root cause of a problem. Event-correlation engines can help, but often themselves introduce more complexity. Considering all this, a new design model is needed to significantly reduce the costs and complexity of managing distributed resources.

In order to automate the management of these distributed resources, such automation software needs to execute on multiple platforms distributed across the enterprise. No single management station can scale to the required size for this automation or provide the robustness and reliability required. Thus, organizations more and more often turn to Java for management, not only for use in Web-based graphical user interfaces (GUIs), but also as the infrastructure for the management applications themselves. To achieve the required platform independence, Sun recently introduced its Jiro technology.

Using Jiro for management

Jiro implements an infrastructure for creating integrated and automated management software in a distributed, cross-platform environment. That infrastructure, a standard extension to the Java platform, is specified by the Federated Management Architecture (FMA). Jiro goes further than just platform independence, however, and introduces Jini-connection technology for distributed management across a network. Jini's leasing, for example, provides a mechanism for allowing management services to come and go in the network, and provides the software that uses these services to recover the associated connections.

Moreover, Jiro introduces a middle tier of management between the thin-client Java GUIs popular today and such Java-based agent technologies as Java Management Extensions (JMX) and the Java Dynamic Management Kit (JDMK). (For more on management issues, see Max Goff's Java management series in JavaWorld; there are links in the Resources section below). This middle tier is where the automation of management can take place, as seen in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Three-tier distributed management with the Jiro technologies

The requirements for this middle tier were determined by an analysis of distributed management and the resources that need to be monitored and controlled. Each resource, whether it is a physical device or a software service, consists of a functional part and a management part. The functional part performs the functions of that resource, such as routing packets or storing data; the management part configures and controls the resource.

There may be several resources processing the data as it moves from the application to its eventual destination -- a disk drive, for example. The functional part of these resources through which the data passes is called the data path.

The associated management, or control, parts of these resources can be thought of as a control path, separate from the data path that passes packets or stores blocks. If a resource is capable of being managed remotely, the control can be either in-band, competing for resources shared with the data path, or out-of-band, using a separate network and ports.

Separating the control path from the data path

Jiro is not intended to implement software that sits in the data path, but rather focuses instead on enabling the automation of control path operations. The resources, through their agents and administrative APIs, expose this control path. Jiro takes advantage of existing standards for such management interfaces as the Internet Engineering Task Force's SNMP protocol, and the Distributed Management Task Force Common Information Model (CIM) standard for Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM).

Federated Management Architecture

As noted above, Jiro is an implementation of the FMA-standard Java extension. The FMA, which became a final specification in January, specifies the extensions to Java necessary to support a middle tier of management software that automates the administration of distributed system, network, and storage resources. The specification and a reference implementation of FMA are available on the Jiro Website (see Resources).

Partitioning the management environment

Jiro divides a management environment into domains. Each domain has only one logical shared management server (a Java Virtual Machine running the Jiro services) that represents the domain as a whole. Other, private management servers can host management services that are specific to their hosts (such as an application server or embedded device). The servers (including the shared server) can be replicated to achieve higher availability. Together, these servers form an intradomain federation for the management domain. The shared management servers can also communicate with each other in a strictly hierarchical fashion to form an interdomain federation; in this way, enterprise-scale management systems are possible. This federation of management servers and hosted services is the key to the scalability and reliability of the Jiro technology.

The management servers in the Jiro technology -- called stations -- host management services, which are network-enabled Jini services. They can easily be located through the Jini Lookup Service. Some of these services are static in nature, offering basic services that all management software needs. Most of the services, however, are dynamic, representing the management interfaces of distributed resources and higher-level management software to the network. The dynamic management services are also reusable software components that can be combined to create complete management solutions.

Static management services

Static Jiro management services -- known as FederatedBeans base services -- are a guaranteed part of the environment in a management domain. The base services include transaction, controller, logging, events, and scheduling. They are available for use by the clients and services belonging to a management domain, and do not depend on the dynamic services model. In other words, the services stand alone and are good Jini technology citizens in their own right (as defined by the Jini technology specification). There is only one of each type of service available in each management domain.