Beta user likes AdventNet's mgmt. software

Many companies are developing new applications on Java 2 Enterprise Edition application servers, such as IBM WebSphere and BEA WebLogic. There are many new players in the market for software that manages J2EE servers, but AdventNet is an established company that has been there for a while.

Managing applications in this environment is challenging because the transactions are very distributed and are processed across a variety of servers. For example, a transaction may come into a Web server, then to an application server, then jump to a database server, then to a backend server, finally returning to the application server.

AdventNet's ManageEngine uses the Java Management Extensions (JMX), an emerging management standard, to manage the apps that sit on top of the application server, as well as the application server itself. It comes with a J2EE agent for monitoring the J2EE infrastructure. It also provides an easy way for developers to create JMX agents to manage J2EE applications, through the ManageEngine JMX Studio. ManageEngine is an intermediary layer that provides the JMX know-how, so developers can create JMX agents without having to be experts on the intricacies of JMX.

ManageEngine has a console, but it can also feed management data to other management consoles, such as Hewlett-Packard OpenView, Tivoli and Computer Associates Unicenter. It uses standard protocols, like SNMP, HTTP, RMI, CORBA and SOAP.

I recently spoke with Mark Carlson, the vice president of technology at Nexstar Financial who has been working with a beta version of ManageEngine's newest release. Nexstar is a full-service national mortgage lender. Web-based, high-touch, high-tech applications are an important part of its business, and it has a Java-centric environment.

The company decided it wanted to use JMX, but its developers didn't know JMX. Although it has developers that could have easily jumped in and learned about the standard, Nexstar opted to use ManageEngine to build JMX agents, so the company's developers could work on projects that created business differentiators for Nexstar.

Even though the developers didn't know JMX, they were able to expose attributes within two to three days, using the tool. They estimate that by using ManageEngine, they are able to create JMX agents in half the time.

They said they liked the fact that ManageEngine allows developers to expose attributes, such as the number of threads, but they can also generate rules with those attributes to create notifications. They said it's simple to do complex rules, and they can do this without a recompile.

On another note, they found that the code is very stable, which is particularly impressive since they were using beta code. Carlson mentioned that AdventNet was very responsive before, during and after deployment. Nexstar is also looking to explore other ways it can use ManageEngine.

All in all, ManageEngine improved the productivity of the developers while providing the operations IT staff with valuable management information and functionality to effectively manage their applications, Carlson said. And in today's environment, productivity is the name of the game.

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Dennis Drogseth is a director with Enterprise Management Associates, a leading analyst and market research firm based in Boulder, Colorado, focusing exclusively on all aspects of enterprise management. Dennis has extensive experience in network management platforms and products and is researching trends in management software and changing IT roles internationally. His 18-plus years of experience in high-tech includes positions at IBM and Cabletron. He has been quoted in the press and is a speaker at industry events. He can be reached via e-mail.

Audrey Rasmussen is a research director with Enterprise Management Associates in Boulder, Colorado, a leading analyst and market research firm focusing exclusively on all aspects of enterprise management. Audrey has more than 20 years of experience working with distributed systems, applications and networks. Her current focus at EMA is e-business, SMB/SME and MSPs. She can be reached via e-mail.

Enterprise Management Associates in Boulder, Colorado, is a leading analyst and market research firm focusing exclusively on all aspects of enterprise management software and services.