Is it possible with JMX to register or show the MBeans form different VMs in one central MBean server?

Question

I\'m looking for a solution to register the MBeans or the whole MBean Servers itself from different Java VMs in a central MBean Server which should also run in a separate VM

Answer 1

The OpenDMK provides a complete way to do this using the Cascading Service. From the documentation:

The cascading service enables you to access the MBeans of a subagent directly through the MBean server of a master agent. The cascading service has been completely overhauled in Java Dynamic Management Kit (Java DMK) 5.1 to allow it to operate over the connector protocols defined by the Java Management Extensions (JMX) Remote API. The legacy cascading service is now deprecated. The examples of the legacy cascading service have been retained in Chapter 25, for reasons of backwards compatibility. However, when using legacy Java DMK connectors, you should use the new CasdingServiceMBean with wrapped legacy connectors rather than relying on the deprecated legacy cascading agent API.

There are some interesting bits-and-pieces in this library that were slated to be naturalized into the standard Java SE in JMX 2.0. The cascading service, I think, was one of them. Once you understand how it works, you may conclude it is something you can implement yourself, although there are several thorny corner cases that the OpenDMK does account for. I am not sure how active the project is, but the software as is seems stable.

You can find the documentation set here. Additionally, I created a mavenized project build of the packages here.

//Nicholas