9.3. Setting up Monitoring for EAP 6 Resources

JBoss ON supports all of the metrics for JBoss EAP 6 resources that are displayed in the EAP 6 console, along with many additional metrics.

The metrics enabled by default in JBoss ON, however, may not be the same ones that are viewable in the EAP 6 console. For example, for data sources, the EAP 6 console displays the available connections count, active connections count, and max used connections count. In JBoss ON, the default metrics collected are the maximum and minimum pool size settings, the max wait time, and the number of time outs per minute.

Metric collection can be enabled or disabled for a resource. Administrators can also reset how often JBoss ON checks a given metric (the collection interval).

To change the monitoring configuration for a resource:

Availability is a (mostly) straightforward measurement that shows whether a resource is running and minimally responsive. If the agent can connect to the resource, that resource is available.

This is how availability is displayed in the EAP 6 console for a resource: it shows whether a resource is currently running.

As a measure of performance, availability can acquire more shades of gray than simply is it running. For example, has a resource been cycling off and on repeatedly? Does it stay offline for long periods before it recovers? Is a resource unavailable because of its own failure or is a parent resource (like the platform) unreachable, while the child is running fine? JBoss ON supports four resources states — up, down, disabled, and unknown — to try to differentiate between real states for the resources.

Availability is covered in much more detail in the availability chapter of "Setting up Monitoring, Alerts, and Operations".

Along with showing the current status of a resource, JBoss ON also shows how long the resource has been in that state and what percentage of time the resource spends in different states. This allows JBoss ON to calculate a few different trends per resource:

Availability is collected on a schedule, much like a monitoring metric. Controlling the frequency of availability checks can establish a resource priority.

The frequency of availability checks can have an impact on agent performance, particularly for servers structured like EAP 6, with a large number of child resources. Every resource is checked for availability, by default. There may be some low-level child resource, like OSGi classes or EJBs, that really do not require an independent availability check. In that case, availability checks can be disabled for the child. The agent automatically applies the parent state to the child; if the parent is running, than the child is assumed to be running. This is called backfilling.