Monitoring big, distributed Java landscapes helps tremendously to keep complex applications under control. But many administrators spare the effort to set up monitoring: No time. Now a timesaving solution is in sight.
„We are maxed out anyway. We need a solution that helps to make our work more effective and not something that if we are lucky saves about as much time as it needs to set it up and maintain it“.
I hear statements like those again and again from IT administrators. With the effect that APM solutions are mainly used for firefighting by experts.
So, what is needed? A solution which allows to monitor a large number of applications with a minimum of configuration effort and identifies the root cause of problems quickly.
Indeed I found and tested a tool which fulfills those requirements. (read more…)
All right, now I’m trying to write the probably shortest post ever published in the codecentric blog … 
So, what’s it about?
I just wanted to point out for those who do not know yet that Dana Bredemeyer will conduct his well-known Software Architecture Workshop at codecentric from Sep-13-2010 to Sep-16-2010. Dana haven’t had an open enrollment for this workshop in Germany for almost 10 years and from all I’ve heard about it this will be a great course. So, if you are interested in that workshop and do not want to travel to the United States for that you might want to take a look at http://www.meettheexperts.de/software-architecture.
Also, I wanted to mention our “Meet the Experts” on Sep-17-2010. “New challenges in architecture today” will be the topic. Five well-known speakers, including Dana Bredemeyer, Dr. Gernot Starke and Prof. Dr. Heinz Züllighoven will share their ideas in insights with you. And, as always there will be a lot of time for discussions, networking, open space for your questions, great catering, and so on. So, if that sounds interesting for you, just have a look at http://www.meettheexperts.de/meettheexperts-architektur.
Okay, that’s all I wanted to talk about. I think those sessions will be great stuff, I will be there for sure. And if you will be there too, I’ll be glad to meet you … and if not, maybe we’ll meet some other time …
AppDynamics is the rising star in the Application Performance Management sky.
Mirko gives a really good description why AppDynamics delivers the right solutions for todays distributed architectures in his Post “Troubleshoot Java in production – introducing AppDynamics Lite“. If you have not read it yet, head over to it now.
The key promise of AppDynamics is simplicity. Easy installation, easy operation and very fast results. In fact this sounds uncommon and hard to believe. But this is indeed the case, as proven by the following uncut screencasts.
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The performance and stability of Java applications in production is getting more and more critical. Most (if not all) of todays businesses rely on software. More and more of these applications use web or mobile technologies to directly offer service to customers or integrate with partners. These applications often leverage other applications or services to deliver the expected result. The infrastructure on which these services and application run is virtualized and will move to public or private clouds in the near future.
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What follows is in my view a typical scenario of one of the common curses of the performance tester. A new version of a test object finds its way into my hands. After some twiddling with it to get it running, I do a first quick test run. Somebody – development, architecture, project management, whoever – gets wind of it and is curious about the results. Defensively, I try a delaying tactic: “It’s the very first run. The test environment wasn’t completely built up. We have to do more tests. We must at first confirm the numbers before it makes any sense to discuss them.” My counterpart is getting more inquisitive. He insists to be aware of all of my objections and that he just wants to satisfy his curiosity. I finally give in and tell the numbers. Shortly thereafter, I regret it deeply. Like an avalanche, my little piece of information has gathered a gigantic mass in no time and like a boomerang it is coming full circle, heading straight back at me.
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When developing a site in JSF many people like to use the Richfaces Framework. It is a pretty solid framework that comes wit a lot of functionality and nice components. It also comes with an Ajax framework called Ajax4JSF (also called a4j). When deploying this site then facing the Internet to production, many people start finding out that their applications eat a lot of memory, leading to unresponsive systems or OutOfMemoryError crashes. This is due to a design issue in JSF / A4J and cannot be easily fixed, but worked around. But lets start with an analysis of whats wrong with our otherwise nice application.
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