Data sheet

HP OpenView Smart Plug-in forBEA WebLogic Server

The HP OpenView Operations Smart Plug-in for BEA WebLogic Server is BEA Validated,assuring easy implementation and trouble-free operation.

Features at a glance

• Auto-discovery and service mapping of the entire WebLogic environment

• Out-of-the-box collection, calculation, alarming and reporting of keyperformance metrics, including EJB, JMS, server queue, transaction, servletand database connectivity

• Comprehensive monitoring of WebLogic server log and configuration files

• Powerful JMX Metric Builder1 to bring the full power of HP OpenView tocustom-built Management Beans

Gain complete controlThe HP OpenView Smart Plug-in (SPI) for BEA WebLogic Server is the key to moreeffective management of your mission-critical WebLogic application infrastructure.However, managing the infrastructure alone is not enough. The powerful extensibility ofthis SPI allows all applications built on top of WebLogic Server to leverage JMX (Java™Management Extensions) for easy manageability. The result is application services thatare highly available, performing to expectations and aligned with your businesspriorities.

Event/action — HP OpenView OperationsHP OpenView Operations monitors key operational events and enables convenientlaunch of key administrative actions on any BEA WebLogic Server. From the centralconsole you can:

• Monitor logfiles, such as weblogic.log, including logfile name rotation

• View contents of WebLogic server log

• Monitor changes to WebLogic configuration files

• Check WebLogic server availability

• Launch the WebLogic browser-based administration application

• Start and stop WebLogic server

Performance — HP OpenView PerformanceHP OpenView Performance monitors critical BEA WebLogic resources (and optionalextensions for applications ‘on top’), including more than 50 pre-defined performancethresholds for WebLogic health.

• Server performance

• Transaction rates

• Servlet executing times, time-outs, request rates

• Enterprise Java Bean resource utilization

• JDBC connection status

• Java Message Service processing

• Java Virtual Machine heap utilization

• Web application processing

• Cluster processing

Figure 1: Bring the full power of HP OpenView to your MBeans.The HP OpenView JMX Metric Builder1 improves the collaboration between developers andadministrators. Developers use it to discover and select MBeans for production monitoring.Administrators use it to automate the creation of HP OpenView metrics, alarms and reportsfor these MBeans.

Apps-on-top — HP OpenView JMX Metric Builder1

The HP OpenView JMX Metric Builder improves the collaboration between developersand administrators when instrumenting and managing applications built on top of BEAWebLogic Server.

• Developers use it to launch the MBean Explorer to discover, filter andgroup MBeans and to select those needed for production monitoring. TheMBean Explorer displays the JMX agents running on application servers ina tree-like structure that expands out to domains, MBeans and attributes.For optimal performance and reliability a nightly process gathers MBeaninformation from desired application servers into a centralized MBean datacache.

• Administrators use it to launch the Metric Explorer to define HP OpenViewmetrics, alarms and reports based upon these MBeans. MBeans can becombined into mathematical formulae, and HP OpenView-specific templateinformation can be modified for different thresholds, severity levels, graphsand reports.

• The JMX Metric Builder enables customized management of not onlyWebLogic Server itself but also applications built on WebLogic Server,such as Siebel, PeopleSoft, Manugistics, I2, Amdocs, Ariba, E.piphany orany in-house or custom-built application that exposes management data viaJMX.

HP’s Developer Resources portal at http://devresource.hp.com contains toolkitsand white papers with advice on when to use JMX and when to use logging techniqueslike Log4J to address application manageability. Developers can access this site forvaluable best practices on adding manageability logic to their applications using someof the popular Design Patterns.

Reports — HP OpenView ReporterThe HP OpenView Smart Plug-in for BEA WebLogic Server includes 22 reports out ofthe box. These reports are scheduled to run nightly using HP OpenView Reporter,delivering both a consolidated snapshot of the entire WebLogic environment as well assingle system reports on performance and availability. Reports include:

• Database: connection utilization

• EJB: cache hits, free pool wait rate, pool utilization throughput, timeoutrate, rollback rate, stateful and entity cache utilization, stateless, entity andmessage-driven pool utilization

• JMS: server utilization

• Server Queue: throughput, utilization

• Servlet: average response times, request rates

• Transactions: throughput, rollbacks

• Server: availability summary, details

Custom reports can be built using Crystal Reports and can access and correlate data inthe HP OpenView Reporter database collected from HP OpenView Operations, HPOpenView Performance, HP OpenView Internet Services or HP OpenView TransactionAnalyzer.

Figure 2: Automatically discover and map out your entire BEA environment.To minimize administrative overhead, scheduled or on-demand auto-discovery can be enabled toautomate the construction of a service map and extract the information required to monitor theentire BEA environment.

Simplicity — auto-discovery and deploymentTo minimize administrative overhead, scheduled or on-demand auto-discovery can beenabled to gather the information required to monitor large environments with manyWebLogic instances per server and/or many servers. The centralized discovery processexamines BEA home directories, WebLogic domain configurations, MBean servers andWebLogic Server processes. The information extracted is used to construct a servicemap within the HP OpenView Operations console, and to enable auto-configurationand auto-deployment of monitoring policies to managed nodes.

Completeness — managing your BEA applications end-to-endThe HP OpenView Smart Plug-in for BEA WebLogic Server is a key component of theHP OpenView solution for BEA application management. It provides the intelligence foroperational monitoring of the BEA WebLogic Server infrastructure. Around 40additional Smart Plug-ins are available for monitoring other elements of theinfrastructure, including CRM applications, ERP applications, messaging, middleware,databases and operating systems.

Complete end-to-end management of BEA architectures also requires monitoring of thecustomer experience, problem isolation and server provisioning (see Figure 3).

• The front-end customer experience can be carefully monitored againstservice levels using HP OpenView Internet Services synthetic transactions or

HP OpenView Transaction Analyzer client monitoring. For users of BEAWebLogic Integration the back-end processing experience can bemonitored by the HP OpenView Smart Plug-in for BEA WebLogicIntegration1, which discovers and maps WLI Objects, such as TaskListsand Adapters, and tracks the health and execution time of processes invarious states.

• Fast problem isolation is conducted non-invasively by HP OpenViewTransaction Analyzer, which discovers, traces, measures, baselines andvisualizes transactions and their constituent components. This approachquickly and unambiguously isolates the source of failed, incomplete orpoorly performing transactions, speeds resolution times and reducesexpensive finger-pointing.

• Server and software provisioning is managed by HP OpenView OSManager, Application Manager and Patch Manager using Radia. Thesesolutions perform policy-based and desired-state provisioning of operatingsystem images, application software and content to the server farms whichpower your BEA applications.

Figure 3: The HP OpenView solution for BEA application managementComplete end-to-end management of BEA architectures also requires monitoring of the customerexperience, problem isolation and server provisioning

System requirementsSupported BEA WebLogic Server releases

• BEA WebLogic Server 6.1 SP1+, 7.0, 7.0 SP1+, 8.1, 8.1 SP1/2

Management server

• HP OpenView Operations for Unix 6.x, 7.x, 7.21 with discovery package

• HP OpenView Operations for Windows 7.20, 7.21

• HP OpenView Performance Manager 2.x, 3.x

• HP OpenView Reporter 2.x, 3.x

• HP-UX 11.0,11.11

• Sun Solaris 2.6, 7, 8, 9

• Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2003

BEA WebLogic Server managed nodes

• HP OpenView Operations Agent compatible with OVO versions above

• HP OpenView Performance Agent compatible with Performance Managerversions above

• HP-UX 11.00, 11.11, 11.23

• Red Hat Linux AS/ES 2.1

• Sun Solaris 2.6, 7, 8, 9

• HP Tru64 5.1A, 5.1B

• MS Windows NT 4.0 SP5+

• Windows 2000 Server

• Windows 2003 32 and 64 bit

• Other platforms may be managed remotely by the WebLogic Server SPIrunning as a proxy on one of the supported platforms above

For detailed release compatibility, contact your HP reseller or HP sales office.

Ordering information

Product Description

B9155AA HP OpenView Smart Plug-in for BEA WebLogic Server, Tier 4

B9141AA HP OpenView Smart Plug-in for BEA WebLogic Server, Tier 3

B9142AA HP OpenView Smart Plug-in for BEA WebLogic Server, Tier 2

B9143AA HP OpenView Smart Plug-in for BEA WebLogic Server, Tier 1

B9144AA HP OpenView Smart Plug-in for BEA WebLogic Server, Tier 0

Media and manuals are included with the media kit for HP OpenView Operations(version 7.0 and above).

The HP OpenView Smart Plug-in for BEA WebLogic Server is the intelligentchoice to keep enterprise Java applications running all the time, at maximumperformance.

Figure 4: a comprehensive architectureThe HP OpenView monitoring architecture for BEA WebLogic Server

Getting the most from your software investmentHP provides high-quality software services that address all aspects of your softwareapplication life-cycle needs and align with your business goals. With HP as yourpartner, you have access to standards-based, modular, multi-platform software coupledwith HP’s best-in-class services and support portfolio. HP offers a scalable set of servicesfor HP OpenView and HP OpenCall products and solutions. This wide range of serviceofferings enables you to choose the services that best match your business needs.

For more information on HP software services available to address your specificbusiness needs, visit www.openview.hp.com/services.

Comprehensive training

HP provides a comprehensive curriculum of HP OpenView and IT Service Managementcourses. These offerings provide the training you need to realize the full potential ofyour HP solutions, increase your network optimization and responsiveness, and achievebetter return on your IT investments.

With more than 25 years experience meeting complex education challengesworldwide, HP knows training. This experience, coupled with unique insights into HPOpenView software, positions HP to deliver the optimum training experience. For moreinformation about these educational courses, visit www.hp.com/learn.

The smartest way to invest in IT

HP Financial Services provides innovative financing and financial asset managementprograms to help you cost-effectively acquire, manage and ultimately retire your HPsolutions. For more information on these services, please contact your HP salesrepresentative or find us on the web at www.hp.com/go/hpfinancialservices .

1 Ask your HP representative or reseller about availability of this feature.

© Copyright 2004 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.The information contained herein is subject to change without notice.The only warranties for HP products and services are set forth in theexpress warranty statements accompanying such products andservices. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting anadditional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorialerrors or omissions contained herein.

For more information, go to www.openeview.hp.com .

6/2004