QoS Monitoring In Middleware

Monitoring the system and services is unavoidable if quality of service (QoS) is to be provided. This paper describes monitoring of middleware components, which express the business logic of e-business applications, and the environment in which they execute. Middleware components have become important because of their prominent role in the EAI (Enterprise Application Integration) and implementation of n-tier web applications. We have developed a framework and a supporting toolkit that enables a QoS specialist/engineer to facilitate monitoring and reporting. Two types of monitored data are collected. The QoS engineer identifies critical activities withing a component so that their delays can be captured. Also collected are data from probing sub-systems forming the environment in which the components execute. We discuss in detail our approach to instrumentation of monitoring probes. Probes habe been successfully instrumented for a number of (sub)systems that form the environment in which the componenets execute, systems that include operating, network, and DB systems.