AMI Basics

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AMI Basics

This section presents a brief overview of the TIBCO Hawk Application Management Interface (AMI).

AMI API is an API used to instrument an application in order to make it manageable by the Hawk System. It is shipped in Java/C/C++ language bindings.

The instrumented application usually connects to the Hawk Agent on the same machine. However, this is not a requirement. You can connect it to a Hawk agent on another machine.

However, it is required that one instrumented application instance only connects to one Hawk Agent.

An Instrumented Application Looks like a Microagent

You interact with the instrumented application using the TIBCO Hawk agent by calling the methods of microagents associated with that agent. An AMI-instrumented application appears and acts as though it were a microagent in the TIBCO Hawk system.

Interaction with an AMI-instrumented application can use the following means:

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Interactive monitoring using the TIBCO Hawk WebConsole. See Monitoring an Instrumented Application through the TIBCO Hawk WebConsole for more information on this.

An example of this might be using the TIBCO Hawk WebConsole to survey many instances of the instrumented application by means of a network query. Another example might be to make simultaneous changes to many such instances by performing a network action.

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Automating monitoring and management of the application by creating rulebases to be processed by TIBCO Hawk agents.

An example of this might be creating rulebases to monitor the application’s error state, detect critical conditions, and increase the output of debug information until the problem is resolved.

Note: An instrumented application is not dependent on the presence of an TIBCO Hawk agent. The relationship between TIBCO Hawk agent and TIBCO Hawk instrumented application is completely voluntary. The management interface might be active only in some instances of the application, or only at specific times during an instance’s activity.

A management interface can be divided into two major portions:

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The initialization code. This code creates a TIBCO Hawk AMI session, passes on the address of a callback function through which messages are to be received, and sets up the functionality to negotiate discovery with a manager.

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A callback function that receives messages from the TIBCO Hawk AMI session. The callback function examines the message and passes it on to one of several internal methods for processing.

Monitoring an Instrumented Application through the TIBCO Hawk WebConsole

The TIBCO Hawk WebConsole is a console application that displays the status of all agents. It is used to view alerts, interact with agents and their microagents, and edit rulebases and other configuration objects. A microagent is an object used by a TIBCO Hawk agent to carry out certain related tasks: to run scripts, to obtain file system information such as free hard disk space or to retrieve a process table. In the TIBCO Hawk WebCosole, instrumented applications appear in the list of microagents, using the name that the application provides through its AMI interface. See Chapter 2, Console API for more information on rulebases and microagents. Any methods thus made visible appear as if they are microagent methods, with arguments and results as described.

Interaction with an instrumented application can occur in the following ways:

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Using the TIBCO Hawk WebConsole, you can interact with an instance of your application from any location in the network.

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Using the TIBCO Hawk WebConsole, you can set up subscriptions to data that your methods provide and use tables and charts to view the results over time.

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Using the TIBCO Hawk WebConsole, you can interact with all instances of your application, across a network, by using network query and network action.

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Using the TIBCO Hawk WebConsole and the rulebase editor, you can create rules to automate monitoring your application from anywhere in the network. Normally, you will create a special rulebase for a managed application and load it onto all TIBCO Hawk agents on computers where that application resides.

Connecting AMI Participants

An instrumented application can communicate with AMI manager using either TIBCO Rendezvous or TIBCO DataGrid as a transport. Such instrumented application should use a similar AMI transport configuration to the one being used by its manager.

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AMI Transport TIBCO Rendezvous If you are using a TIBCO Hawk agent as your manager, start the TIBCO Hawk agent with the same service, network, and daemon options for its primary monitoring session as for the TIBCO Rendezvous session set up in the application.

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AMI Transport TIBCO DataGrid If you are using a TIBCO Hawk agent as your manager, start the TIBCO Hawk agent with the same discovery URL for its primary monitoring session as for the TIBCO DataGrid session set up in the application.

You can also configure the agent to use additional TIBCO Rendezvous/TIBCO DataGrid sessions to monitor AMI activity. See the TIBCO Hawk Installation, Configuration, and Administration Guide for details on configuring agents to use additional AMI sessions.