ATG Platform - Key Frameworks

• MVC Framework: Presentation layer for web applications' modules running on ATG platform could comprise of following key framework components:

1. DSP Tag Library
2. Droplets: Also termed as Servlet. Droplets Extends DynamoServlet and are used to serve data on UI. It acts like "View" of MVC framework.
3. FormHandlers: Form Handlers acts like a controller of "MVC framework". The key responsibilities include handling request-response and using one or more components (model) to handle the request.

• Nucleus Component Model: Nucleus component model is very similar to dependency frameworks such as Spring etc. Basically, Nucleus component model manages the component lifecycle based on declarative configuration.  In earlier days, it was difficult to understand Nucleus when Spring framework which is very popular today, was not there.
• ORM Framework: This is Repository. This is also represented as Data Anywhere Architecture. This is similar to ORM framework such Hibernate. It provides unified view to disparate data types coming from disparate data sources.

Java Latency Contributor

1.      The biggest contributor is garbage collector

2.      In-process locking and thread scheduling

3.      I/O

4.      Application algorithmic inefficiencies

Who created Osama Bin Laden?

 

Integrating Centralized Logging System to OpenNMS for Alerts

Once the solution is based on SOA, there can be a need to have a centralized logging facility where each of the service would be using log agents to send logs to a cluster of centralized log server. This can be done via various manners using log4J framework by making use of one of the following appenders:

1. SysLogD
2. JMSAppenders

JMSAppender could be used within Log agents to send logs to a messaging bus from where message could be retrieved by store agents on centralized log server.

Further to that, the message once retrieved from the Message bus would be watched for warnings or exceptions for purpose of generating alerts which could be informed to admin via SMS or email.

This can be done by integrating centralized log server with OpenNMS. This is done based on following:

1. The incoming messages is watched for exception/warning messages.
2. Once these messages are found, the event is created and send as an XML document to OpenNMS eventD plugin on a TCP socket. EventD listens on port such as 5817 by default. This port needs to be opened for external system such as centralized log server to send message using Sockets.

Following class could be used to send message using Socket:

he Code

   package com.company.onms.monitor;

 import java.io.IOException;
   import java.io.PrintWriter;
   import java.net.Socket;
   import java.net.UnknownHostException;
   import java.text.DateFormat;
   import java.util.Calendar;
   import java.util.Date;
   import java.util.HashMap;
   import java.util.Map;
   /**
    *
    * @author apaxson
    */
   public class OnmsEvent {
       private String uei;
       private String source;
       private int nodeid;
       private String time;
       private String host;
       private Map parms = new HashMap();
       public OnmsEvent(String uei, int nodeid, String host, String source) {
           setUei(uei);
           setNodeid(nodeid);
           setHost(host);
           setSource(source);
           Date currentTime = Calendar.getInstance().getTime();
           DateFormat dformat = DateFormat.getDateTimeInstance(DateFormat.FULL, DateFormat.FULL);
           dformat.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("GMT"));
           setTime(dformat.format(currentTime));
       }
       protected String getUei() {
           return uei;
       }
       protected void setUei(String uei) {
           this.uei = uei;
       }
       protected String getSource() {
           return source;
       }
       protected void setSource(String source) {
           this.source = source;
       }
       protected int getNodeid() {
           return nodeid;
       }
       protected void setNodeid(int nodeid) {
           this.nodeid = nodeid;
       }
       protected String getTime() {
           return time;
       }
       protected void setTime(String time) {
           this.time = time;
       }
       protected String getHost() {
           return host;
       }
       protected void setHost(String host) {
           this.host = host;
       }
       public void addParm(String key, String value) {
           parms.put(key, value);
       }
       @SuppressWarnings(value = "unchecked")
       protected Map<String, String> getParms() {
           return parms;
       }
       protected String toXml() {
           StringBuffer data = new StringBuffer();
           data.append("<log>");
           data.append("<events>");
           data.append("<event>");
           data.append("<uei>" + getUei() + "</uei>");
           data.append("<source>" + getSource() + "</source>");
           data.append("<nodeid>" + getNodeid() + "</nodeid>");
           data.append("<time>" + getTime() + "</time>");
           data.append("<host>" + getHost() + "</host>");
           data.append("<parms>");
           // Cycle through each parameter
           for (Map.Entry<String, String> e : getParms().entrySet()) {
               data.append("<parm>");
               data.append("<parmName>");
               data.append("<![CDATA[" + e.getKey() + "]]></parmName>");
               data.append("<value type=\"string\" encoding=\"text\"><![CDATA[" + e.getValue() + "]]></value>");
               data.append("</parm>");
           }
           data.append("</parms>");
           data.append("</event>");
           data.append("</events>");
           data.append("</log>");
           return data.toString();
       }
       /**
        * TODO Remember to change the hardcoded address 2.3.4.5 to your address for onms.
        *  Preferrably, place this in a config file somewhere
        */
       public void sendEvent(String xmlData) {
           //TODO check to make sure xmlData isn't null before creating socket
           //TODO make some useful logging functions here, rather than println
           Socket socket = null;
           try {
               System.out.println("Sending data");
               socket = new Socket("2.3.4.5", 5817);
               PrintWriter out = new PrintWriter(socket.getOutputStream(), true);
               out.println(xmlData);
               System.out.println("Sending data complete");
           } catch (UnknownHostException ex) {
               System.out.println("Unknown host");
           } catch (IOException ex) {
               System.out.println("I/O Exception while creating socket");
           } finally {
               try {
                   socket.close();
               } catch (IOException ex) {
                   System.out.println("I/O Exception when closing socket");
               }
           }
       }
   }

The Usage

Okay, so to use this new class, you create the object, and set the data. As such:

       OnmsEvent event = new OnmsEvent("uei.company.com/application/logFileTableLoadError",26,"test.host.com", "ServerLogMonitor");
       event.addParm("file", "logfile001.log");
       event.addParm("content","Disregard... testing only");
       event.sendEvent(event.toXml());

Lessons learnt for scaling Java EE applications

Check out following link for detailed description:

1. Use
   share nothing clustering architectures
2. Use
   scalable session replication mechanisms
3. Use
   collocated deployment instead of distributed one
4. Shared
   resources and services
5. Parallel Processing

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My Two Cents on SOA & Startups

An organization needs to spend a lot (COST) to achieve a true SOA based architecture just because SOA is not only limited to Service and their interactions. Following are areas which needs to be considered for achieving an “Agile SOA” platform:

- Service

- Governance

- Architecture

- Process

- People

- Engagement & Delivery Operation

Trust me, really speaking, it would not be very SMART & INTELLIGENT if we tell to our clients that we offer SOA based solutions. WE COULD SIMPLY BE CAUGHT UNAWARE! Simply because if we get an SOA expert across the table, we would simply find ourselves struggling with some real tough questions on SOA governance, process, service discovery, Delivery & Operations Management (ITIL) aspects of SOA. So, we rather should take caution (MAKE RIGHT CHOICE OF WORDS) when we speak to our clients that we offer SOA-based solution as it could simply backfire!

And, this is very natural that an organization cannot achieve “Agile SOA” status in first few years as no organization (especially start-ups) could IGNORE COST-EFFECTIVENESS of the solutions. Or, it will simply be DEAD!

Its very natural that in the initial years, organization would want to be happy with SOA based solution rated as “Ad-hoc SOA” status. That said, pl feel free to ask for various transitions for SOA and roadmap that an organization need to take to transition from “Ad-hoc SOA” to “Agile SOA” status.