Designed for High Efficiency and Adaptability

Implemented primarily in Java with small portions of portable C code, vFabric Hyperic Agents run on Windows and a range of *nix operating systems. Featuring a compact memory and small CPU utilization footprint, the Hyperic Agent has proven its exceptional performance and airtight security in some of the world’s most demanding IT environments.  Agent components include:

Agent Core Layer

The very small, lightweight Agent “kernel” containing the network listener and command processor.

Network Listener

Implements the Agent network protocol, a simplified version of the SOAP protocol, transmitted over SSL. Responsible for marshaling messages on and off the network.

Command Processor

Loads the individual subsystems and plug-ins, and delegates incoming requests to the appropriate subsystem.

Agent Subsystems

• Measurement—oversees local metric collection activity and relays collected data to the Hyperic Server.
• Control—executes control actions.
• Auto-Discovery—runs auto-discovery scans and sends inventory reports to the Hyperic Server.
• Event Tracking—tracks log, configuration, and event information and relays it to the Hyperic Server.

Plugin Layer

When a subsystem (for example, measurement) needs to interact with a particular product (to gather a metric or restart a service), the subsystem delegates that task to the plug-in for that resource, which performs the required action. Plug-ins interact with the assets they support using standards-based interfaces such as JMX, SNMP, and JDBC. Communication between plug-ins and their managed technologies happens entirely on the local machine, ensuring that no sensitive information travels over the network

Other Agent Features

Fault Tolerance

Should the Hyperic Server become temporarily unavailable, the Agent continues to function normally. Any collected monitoring data is spooled to disk and transmitted to the Server once the connection is re-established. Each Agent’s configuration, the metrics it collects, its control schedule, and other setup parameters are stored centrally on the Hyperic Server. If an Agent is deleted from a platform for any reason, its Server-resident configuration data persists. After reinstallation, the Agent can download its stored configuration from the Server and resume operations. This feature enables “burn-in” scenarios wherein the Hyperic Agent is included in an automated install based on a disk or “ghost” image.

Distributed Management

Hyperic “deployer” tools make it easy to deploy agents to hundreds of machines from a single console. The tools are enabled through a platform-independent implementation of the SSH protocol, ensuring that all Hyperic-related network traffic is secure.

Smart Plugin Configuration

Each Hyperic plug-in enables a set of default metrics that immediately provide the appropriate level of visibility for that resource. These levels are determined by best practices contributed by our customers. Each plug-in also defines an inventory hierarchy specific to the technology it manages. For example, JEE application servers—such as WebLogic and WebSphere—define a vast array of services such as JCA connection pools, webapps, EJBs, JMS Topics, and more.

Built-in Efficiency

Each technology-specific Hyperic plug-in is built to interact with the APIs and monitoring mechanisms employed by that vendor’s own management and administration tools. This guarantees that Hyperic can manage the resource with the same efficiency.