HERCULE: Non-invasively Tracking Java TM Component-Based Application Activity
Karen Renaud · European Conference on Object-Oriented Programming · 2000
This paper presents HERCULE, an approach to non-invasive- ly tracking end-user application activity in a distributed, component- based system. Such tracking can support the visualisation of user and application activity, system auditing, monitoring of system performance and the provision of feedback. A framework is provided that allows the insertion of proxies, dynamically and transparently, into a component- based system. Proxies are inserted in between the user and the graphical user-interface and between the client application and the rest of the dis- tributed, component-based system. The paper describes: how the code for the proxies is generated by mining component documentation; how they are inserted without aecting pre-existing code; and how informa- tion produced by the proxies can be used to model application activity. The viability of this approach is demonstrated by means of a prototype implementation.