14.2.1 Class of a Cascaded MBean

Proxy MBeans registered in the target MBeanServers when mounting source MBean servers are implemented as instances of the CascadingProxy class. The CascadingProxy MBean is locally registered in the target MBean server, and has the same MBeanInfo as its source MBean. In particular, if the source MBean is a model MBean, the MBeanInfo exposed by its CascadingProxy is ModelMBeanInfo. The exposed MBean information also contains the class name of the original MBean, and not the class name of the CascadingProxy. Exposing this borrowed MBeanInfo guarantees that the cascading service is as transparent as possible.

The symmetry of the Java dynamic management architecture means that this cascading mechanism is scalable to any number of levels. The cascaded object of a cascaded object is again an instance of the CascadingProxy class, and it borrows the same MBeanInfo. Any operation on the top target object is propagated to its source subagent, where the intermediate cascaded object will send it to its own source subagent, and so forth. The cost of cascading is the cost of accessing the subagents. The depth of your cascading hierarchy should be adapted to your management solution.

Because the cascading service MBean instantiates and controls all cascaded MBeans, the CascadingProxy class should never be instantiated through a management operation, nor by the code of the agent application. It is described here only to provide a better understanding of the internal behavior of the cascading service.