HP OSMS white paper: How to Monitor JBoss v4.0.3 SP1 with HP SIM using SNMP

The management station receives and sets objects in the MIB, and an agent notifies the management station
of significant but unsolicited events called traps. All communication between the management station
and its agents take place using SNMP.
The structure of management information (SMI), an SNMP standard, defines the rules for how MIB objects
are structured, described, and organized. The SMI allows devices to communicate by ensuring that they
use a strict data representation for all management information. SMI standards are designed to define the
following information elements in SNMP:
• The general characteristics associated with all MIB objects. SMI defines the standard by which all
MIB objects are described.
• The different types of MIB objects that can be created, such as integers, strings, and more complex
data types.
• A hierarchical structure for naming MIB objects.
• The management information associated with each MIB module.
Each object in the MIB has an object identifier (OID), which the management station uses to request the
object's value from the agent. An OID is a sequence of integers that uniquely identifies a managed object
by defining a path to that object through a tree-like structure called the OID tree. When an SNMP agent
needs to access a specific managed object, it traverses the OID tree to find the object. The MIB object
identifier hierarchy and format for the enterprise (generic) HP MIB is shown in the following figure.
Figure 2 Enterprise HP MIB Object Identifier Hierarchy
In this hierarchy, each HP MIB object that the SNMP Agent software manages has a unique object identifier.
A prefix of .1.3.6.1.4.1.11 points to the objects in the private HP MIB for the SNMP Agent software. There
are more MIBs that reside under the private HP MIB. Each describes management information for a specific
HP device, application, or other managed object.
The size of the MIB and the number of OIDs varies depending on management complexity. For instance,
a MIB for the management of a LaserJet Series 4050 printer (OID prefix .1.3.6.1.4.1.11.2.3.9.4.2.1.1.2.59) has
over 800 OIDs. The OID .1.3.6.1.4.1.11.2.3.9.4.2.2.13.4.1.11 maps to the object type prtmediapathstatus,
which when queried by the SNMP agent, returns status information about the media path. For more
information regarding the MIB for the HP LaserJet printer in this example, see:
http://www.oidview.com/mibs/11/LaserJet-Series4050-MIB.html
Although JBoss does have a private enterprise OID (18016), JBoss elected not to use it in their SNMP
adaptor solution. The JBoss OID does not contain any MIBs below it, as depicted in Figure 2 (page 11).
Rather, JBoss uses an enterprise OID of 1.2.3.4.5.6.7 defined in the notifications.xml file that is
supplied by JBoss. This file is described in the“Configuring the SNMP Service” (page 13) section.
JBoss, J2EE, SNMP with JMX
Most network accessible objects today support SNMP and use a predefined MIB. The popularity of SNMP
has made it the most widespread protocol used to manage networked devices resulting in an enormous
base of SNMP management infrastructure. Leveraging this infrastructure to manage software was the
next logical step, thus, the model for managing devices was extended to software applications. This required
the software product to include an SNMP agent and associated MIB to enable management using an SNMP
manager. However, in the realm of Java and J2EE, Java Management Extensions (JMX) has emerged as
the preferred technology for application management. JMX defines a standard for writing JMX objects;
also called MBeans.
JBoss, J2EE, SNMP with JMX 11