This topic provides an overview of VMware Tanzu GemFire management and monitoring tools, and links to topics that provide additional details about these tools.
The Tanzu GemFire management and monitoring tools allow you to configure all members and processes of a cluster, monitor operations in the system, and start and stop the members.
Internally, Tanzu GemFire uses Java MBeans, specifically MXBeans, to expose management controls and monitoring features. You can monitor and control Tanzu GemFire by creating and using Java programs that use these MXBeans, or you can use one of several tools provided with Tanzu GemFire to monitor and manage your cluster. The primary tool for these tasks is the gfsh command-line tool, as described in this section.
Tanzu GemFire provides the following tools to manage a Tanzu GemFire installation:
gfsh Command-line tool
The gfsh command line tool provides a set of commands you use to configure, manage, and monitor a cluster. gfsh is the recommended tool for managing your cluster.
Use gfsh to:
- Start and stop Tanzu GemFire processes, such as locators and cache servers
- Deploy applications
- Create and destroy regions
- Execute functions
- Manage disk stores
- Import and export data
- Monitor Tanzu GemFire processes
- Launch Tanzu GemFire monitoring tools
- Shut down a cluster
- Script various operations involving Tanzu GemFire members
- Save the configuration for all members of a cluster
gfsh runs in its own shell, or you can execute gfsh commands directly from the OS command line. gfsh can interact with remote systems using the http protocol. You can also write scripts that run in a gfsh shell to automate system startup.
You can use gfsh to create shared cluster configurations for your cluster. You can define configurations that apply to the entire cluster, or that apply only to groups of similar members that all share a common configuration. Tanzu GemFire locators maintain these configurations as a hidden region and distribute the configuration to all locators in the cluster. The locator also persists the shared configurations on disk as cluster.xml and cluster.properties files. You can use those shared cluster configuration files to re-start your system, migrate the system to a new environment, add new members to a cluster, or to restore existing members after a failure.
A basic cluster configuration consists of:
cluster.xmlfile shared by the clustercluster.propertiesfile shared by the cluster- Deployed jar files containing application Java classes.
See Overview of the Cluster Configuration Service and Cluster Configuration Files and Troubleshooting for additional details about gfsh cluster configuration files.
Using the gfsh tool, you can easily migrate a Tanzu GemFire-based application from a development environment into a testing or production environment.
Executing gfsh commands with the management API
You can also use Tanzu GemFire’s management APIs to execute gfsh commands in a Java class. See Executing gfsh Commands through the Management API.
Member Configuration Management
When you issue gfsh commands and have the cluster configuration service enabled (on a locator), Tanzu GemFire saves the configurations created within gfsh by building a cluster.xml and cluster.properties files for the entire cluster, or group of members.
You can also directly create configurations using cache.xml and gemfire.properties files and manage the members individually.
Java Management Extension (JMX) MBeans
Tanzu GemFire uses a federated Open MBean strategy to manage and monitor all members of the cluster. Your Java classes interact with a single MBeanServer that aggregates MBeans from other local and remote members. Using this strategy gives you a consolidated, single-agent view of the cluster.
Tanzu GemFire’s implementation of JMX is industry-standard and friendly to generic JMX clients. You can monitor or manage the cluster by using any third-party tool that is compliant with JMX. For example, JConsole.
See VMware Tanzu GemFire Management and Monitoring
Tanzu GemFire Java API
The Tanzu GemFire API provides a set of Java classes you can use to manage and monitor a cluster. See the org.apache.geode.management package in the javadocs.
Tanzu GemFire Pulse
Tanzu GemFire Pulse is a Web Application that provides a graphical dashboard for monitoring vital, real-time health and performance of Tanzu GemFire clusters, members, and regions.
Note: GemFire 10.1 deprecates Pulse in favor of VMware GemFire Management Console. Pulse will be removed in a future release.
Use Pulse to examine total memory, CPU, and disk space used by members, uptime statistics, client connections, and critical notifications. Pulse communicates with a Tanzu GemFire JMX manager to provide a complete view of your Tanzu GemFire deployment.
See Tanzu GemFire Pulse.
JConsole
JConsole is a JMX monitoring utility provided with a Java Development Kit (JDK). You use gfsh to connect to Tanzu GemFire, and then launch JConsole with a gfsh command. The JConsole application allows you to browse MBeans, attributes, operations, and notifications. For more information, see Browsing Tanzu GemFire MBeans through JConsole.
Prometheus Metrics Endpoint
Tanzu GemFire provides a Prometheus endpoint that allows the metrics to be gathered by a metrics collection agent and forwarded to a metrics monitoring platform, such as the Tanzu GemFire Management Console, for further analysis and alerting.
For more information, see Prometheus Metrics Endpoint
Tanzu Observability (formerly known as VMware Aria Operations for Applications)
Tanzu GemFire provides out-of-the-box integration with Tanzu Observability (formerly known as VMware Aria Operations for Applications). For more information, see Tanzu Observability (formerly VMware Aria Operations for Applications)
