Access To A Connector

A connector client enables a Java manager to access MBeans in a remote agent through a particular communications protocol. The Java Dynamic Management Kit 4.1 provides a connector client for each of the protocols supported . All connector clients have the same interface, meaning that the manager is protocol-independent.

Connector client objects are the objects that management applications use to communicate with the agents that they wish to manipulate. These objects establish a connection to a corresponding connector server in an agent, through the specific protocol they implement. There is thus one connector server and client pair for each protocol supported.

A connector client enables Java managers to perform management operations on a Java agent. Connector clients provide a level of abstraction by allowing a manager to manipulate local objects, the effects of which are remote. The manager does not need information on the protocol used to communicate with the agent; it needs either the class name or object name of the objects to be managed.

There are three ways for a manager to interact with its connector client:

• The management application can call the operations of the connector client to interact with remote MBeans directly.

• The management application can call the operations on a generic proxy MBean created by the connector client.

• The application can have the connector client instantiate local proxy MBean objects which represent each MBean in a remote agent; in this case, the manager calls the operations of the proxy MBean, derived from its corresponding MBean.

  The proxy MBeans themselves rely upon the remote MBean server interface; they provide simplified access to the remote objects. In both cases, a manager must have information on the semantics of the MBeans it manages. It is much easier to write a management application using proxy MBeans, rather than calling the remote MBean server interface. However, this requires that the appropriate proxy MBean objects be available to the management application. Manipulating proxy MBeans also uses more memory resources as they are instantiated objects.

Java managers access a connector through a connector client. The Java Dynamic Management Kit 4.1 provides connector clients to enable a Java manager to access a connector using these protocols:

• RMI

• HTTP/TCP

• HTTP/SSL