For Monitoring JVMs with JMX is it better to use build your own tool or use something like JConsol

Question

I am currently tasked with developing a tool to use JMX to monitor JVMs for things like, but not limited too, memory usage, heap size, thread count. The desired tool is one that can display many graphs for each jvm next to each other (example below).

So the question is it best to build your own? Use another tool that is out there? (if so which one(s)) Or is there a tool that has a license, which I can build off of?

Example: (Each JVM has many graphs that are viewable at once so you can see if a specific application / server / jvm is acting up fairly easily.

1. JVM1: PermGen graph, Heap Size graph, Threads graph
2. JVM2: PermGen graph, Heap Size graph, Threads graph
3. JVM3: PermGen graph, Heap Size graph, Threads graph

***Edit: "You forgot the third option... Buy one." Any in particular that could match those requirements? or be extensible enough to handle them?

Answer 1

You forgot the third option... Buy one.

Answer 2

Sounds like what both jConsole and VisualVM do - both are distributed with JDK-6.

Answer 3

Web Services Connector for Java Management Extensions (JMX) Agents, which seem to be planned for Java 7, offer an easy way to implement such a tool in any language. It is a web service / http based JMX agent standard, and can also be used to request diagnostic information from the JVM.

Actually I am trying this with Delphi and it works quite good already (using the reference implementation ws-jmx-connector). It is already a very JConsole-like application, but without graphs.

I will try to implement a graphical monitor view in a free demo application for my library, which is not yet available for public download.