Introduction

The figure below the framework’s composition based on the two main components KiekerMonitoringPart and KiekerAnalysisPart.

• The KiekerMonitoringPart component is responsible for program instrumentation, data collection, and logging. Its core is the MonitoringController.

• The component KiekerAnalysisPart is responsible for reading, analyzing, and visualizing the monitoring data. Its core is the AnalysisController which manages the life-cycle of the pipe-and-filter architecture of analysis plugins, including monitoring readers and analysis filters.

Please note that older programs might use a AnalysisController setup while new analyses and tools reply on architecture-java-analysis-and-tools-api.

• In case you want to learn how to apply Kieker to a Java application, you find an tutorial under Getting Started.

• For more advanced uses you may consult Tutorials

• All tools are documented under Kieker Tools

• More documentation and API and other programming languages can be found below

Framework Components and Extension Points

Kieker framework components and extension points for custom components

The Figure above depicts the possible extension points for custom components as well as the components which are already included in the Kieker distribution and detailed below.

• Monitoring writers and corresponding readers for file systems and SQL databases, for in-memory record streams (named pipes), as well writers and readers employing Java Management Extensions (JMX) and Java Messaging Service (JMS) technology. A special reader allows to replay existing persistent monitoring logs, for example to emulate incoming monitoring data—also in real-time.

• Time sources utilizing Java’s System.nanoTime() (default) or System.current\-TimeMillis() methods.

• Monitoring record types allowing to store monitoring data about operation executions (including timing, control-flow, and session information), CPU and resource utilization, memory/swap usage, as well as a record type which can be used to store the current time.

• Monitoring probes: A special feature of Kieker is the ability to monitor (distributed) traces of method executions and corresponding timing information. For monitoring this data, Kieker includes monitoring probes employing AspectJ, Java EE, Servlet, Spring, and Apache CXF technology. Additionally, Kieker includes probes for (periodic) system-level resource monitoring employing OSHi.

• Analysis/Visualization plugins can be assembled to pipe-and-filter architectures based on input and output ports. The KiekerTraceAnalysis tool is itself implemented based on Kieker Analysis filters allowing to reconstruct and visualize architectural models of the monitored systems, e.g., as dependency graphs, sequence diagrams, and call trees.