Getting Started With JaxView

JaxView is a product to help you manage Web services in a service-oriented architecture (SOA) environment. JaxView provides tools for monitoring real-time service performance, operational availability and message content. JaxView can also be deployed as a service gateway and XML firewall to enforce authentication for Web services and to virtualize service endpoints. This deployment option also enables a flexible array of policy governance functionality.

This section gives an overview of steps you can use to get started with JaxView. After installing the JaxView server, the following summarizes the approach to use to integrate JaxView into your Web service management solutions. Once you have set up JaxView Web service monitoring and management functions you can refine the settings to meet your operational objectives.

Set up JaxView

The first task for getting started with JaxView is the installation and identification of Web services to be managed. The following sections provide an overview and steps for installing the JaxView server, accessing JaxView, identifying Web services to be managed with JaxView, and installation of agent stubs that allow JaxView to receive copies of messages sent to and from services in the SOA environment.

Install JaxView

JaxView is designed to be easy to install. On Microsoft Windows platforms, the JaxView download includes an executable installation wizard to guide you through the installation.

Starting and Stopping JaxView

JaxView runs as a service on Microsoft Windows platforms. The installation wizard will start the JaxView service as part of the installation process. Usually the service runs as a local user. It is recommended to change the service to run as a user with administrative privileges on that machine. You can also see if the service is running from the Task Manager dialog. Click on the process tab and look for javaw and JaxViewService process.

To start, stop, or restart the JaxView service on Microsoft Windows platforms:

1. Open up the control panel
2. Open the services dialog
3. Locate the entry for JaxViewService.
4. If the service has not been started, start the service. To stop the service, select Stop.

NOTE: By default, the JaxView Web server uses port 9090. If this port is not available, you can change the port by modifying the server.xml file for Tomcat at <AppRoot>/tomcat/conf/server.xml file. In this file, find the Connector tag and change the port number attribute. After modifying the port you need to restart the JaxView service for the change take effect.

NOTE: If you are having difficulties getting the service to start on windows XP, locate the VCRTArchive.zip and un-zip the contents into the C: directory. This will add a couple of missing DLL's into your system directory. Then try and restart the JaxView service again.

NOTE: Some of the controls in JaxView use an ActiveX component. To be able to view them, you must enable “Allow active content to run" in you Browser. In Internet Explorer you can do this from Tools-> Internet Options-> Advanced menu item.

Open the JaxView Interface

A Web server is included as part of the JaxView package, so the server where you install JaxView does not need to have a Web server installed for JaxView to work. After starting the service, you access JaxView by going to http://localhost:9090/Hubble/servlet/LoginServlet. The login page is displayed. If it is the first time you are accessing JaxView, you log in using the default username of admin and the default password which is also admin. Once you have logged in, you should click on the Admin tab in the JaxView main view and find the Users node in the left side menu tree. Right click on the Users node to Add a new user. Also, you will want to edit the administrator user node to change the password for that account. Right-click on the administrator node under the Users node to display the edit menu to change the default username and password to something more secure.

Gather WSDL File Information

In order to enable monitoring of Web services messaging, JaxView needs to know how to identify what services are in the environment. Gather the location of the WSDL files for all the Web services to be managed by JaxView. You will need the URL's to the WSDL files or copies of the WSDL files to be able to add Web services management objects into JaxView.

Enable Web Service Messaging to JaxView

Before you can see any messages in JaxView you need to enable JaxView to receive or detect Web service request and response messages. There are three ways that JaxView can do this:

• Identify Web service endpoints in JaxView and then have all messages to those services pass through JaxView, using JaxView as a proxy server. This option allows JaxView to monitor and manage Web service messages without increasing network traffic.
• Integrate JaxView with a network appliance in a location where all Web service message traffic is accessible. This option allows JaxView to auto-discover Web services based on the pattern of messages traveling on the network. This requires the installation the Ethereal product as a network sniffer. See the section JaxView as Network Appliance for more information on installing JaxView as a network appliance.
• Integrate JaxView with an Enterprise Service Bus or Message Broker to recieve copies of messages. See the section Connecting to an Enterprise Service Bus or Message Broker for more information on this option.
• Install JaxView agent stubs on your Web service containers. See the section Installing JaxView Agent Stubs for more information on installing stubs.

In most cases, more than one method of Web service message capture can be enabled in JaxView.

Import Web Service Information into JaxView

After ensuring that the JaxView service is running and logging in, the next task is to import Web service information into JaxView. For JaxView to start looking at those messages, it needs to know about those services. They need to be defined in the JaxView system.

If this is a new JaxView install, an example service is included that runs within the servlet container that JaxView uses. You can use this example service to see how services and operations are defined in JaxView. The example service can be removed at anytime.

To import Web service information into JaxView

1. In the JaxView main view, click on the Services tab. The Services page is displayed.
2. Click on the Services node in the left side menu area.
3. Right-click with the mouse to display the node action menu and click on add a new service. You can select to add a SOAP service or a REST service. The Add Service form is displayed in the right side panel.
4. Enter the WSDL URL into the text box in the form.
   
   Note: Make sure the WSDL file is available through the input URL or the service import will fail.
5. Decide which monitor types you want to use to monitor this Web service. Please read the Monitor Tab section to see a list of all monitor types available in JaxView. JaxView includes a set of default monitor types for checking performance and message size of a service. If you'd like these monitors to be assigned to this service, check the "Assign monitors" box and select the check boxes to the left of the monitor types you want to assign to the service.
6. Click Save near the bottom of the form.

JaxView will attempt to retrieve the service description from the URL you provided. If it is successful, the specific Web service and all of its operations should be added to the Services tree on the left side of the page.

Assign Monitors to Web Service Operations

Since a Web service is often a collection of operations, you need to assign the monitors to the operations offered by that service. There are several ways to assign JaxView monitors to a Web service.

• You can assign monitors to the Web service at the time that you enter the service description URL information as described above.
• You can right click on the Operation node in the Services Tree under message tab and select the Assign Monitor menu item. This will show you a list of existing monitor types that you can assign to the operation.
• You can also right click on the monitor type nodes in the left side Monitor tree under Monitors tab and select the Assign to Operation item.

Configure JaxView Operational Management Features

If you have successfully completed the steps in the Set up JaxView Web Service Monitoring section above, JaxView is now monitoring actual Web service messages in the SOA environment. The effectiveness of operations management relies on efficient event analysis, communication, and reporting. JaxView includes automated event signaling with flexible event threshold rules. JaxView also includes a variety of service message identification options as well as reporting capabilities. The following sections provide an overview and steps for configuring JaxView as an effective operations management tool.

Create Event Alerts and Rules

JaxView is an event driven application. It gathers different set of metrics from the messages that are being received by the Web service operation and their responses. These metrics are gathered by a set of monitors. These monitors have a set of thresholds that cause the monitor to be have a status of Error, Warning, or Good. When a metric gets generated and a threshold is met, the monitor will assume a status for that particular message. Why this status is important is for event correlation. For example, lets assume a monitor is monitoring the response of a Web service operation that measure send the inventory of a store. How does the user know when those inventory levels have been reached. Alerts and rules are available that allow an event to get triggered when the monitor threshold has been met. So the user will setup a Message Content monitor that will be in error if the inventory levels have sunk below a certain number. A rule is assigned to this monitor which says if this monitor is in Error once, which means the levels are below the levels, and alret assigned to this rule that if it happens an e-mail will be sent to the administrator that alerts them of this event. Please look at the Alert Tab for details of how to setup an alert.

Note: Rules allow the user to perform more complicated event correlations. For example what if the user wanted the alert to be triggered after 3 consecutive error conditions have been met not just once. The Rule API is an ope API and the user can create their own even more complicated rules. The alert API is also an open API for creating more customized alerting. Please contact us at support@managedMethods.com for help on how to use these API's.

Create User Accounts

Users are created in JaxView to restrict the application from unauthorized users and intruders. The users are created under Admin tab and Users node in the Admin Tree.

Create Client Profiles

Clients are created in JaxView to allow the client usage monitors to generate metrics for certain clients and partners. Before adding a new Client Usage monitor you need to create clients to let JaxView know what user name to look for in the message. JaxView uses the Username tag in the WS-SECURITY header information. Clients can be created from the Admin tab under Client node.

Create Report Definitions

All of the metrics that the monitors gather for the Web service operation can be reported on over a time period. This is done by right clicking on the Operation name in the Message tab's Service Tree operation nodes. The reports can be generated over a period of time. Please see the Report Tab section for more information on reports.

Assign Scheduled Reports to Web Service Operations

Two types of reports exist out of the box under the report tab. A daily report and a scheduled report. After adding your first Web service assign these reports to the operations in the Web service by right clicking on the name of the report and choosing Assign to Operation option, in the report tree under Reports Tab.

Working with JaxView is designed to be an easy experience. If you have any questions on how to get started please contact us at support@managedMethods.com and one of our support engineers can walk you through the initial setup process.