Blackbird Monitoring System - Performance Analysis and Monitoring in Information Systems

This work presents the BlackBird system, which is an analysis and monitoring service for data-intensive enterprise applications, without restrictions on the targeted architecture or employed technologies. Monitoring systems are an essential tool for the effective management of Enterprise Applications and the attainment of the demanding service level agreements imposed to these applications. However, due to the increasing complexity and diversity of these applications, adequate monitoring systems are rarely available. The BlackBird monitoring system is able to interact with these applications through different technologies employed by the Monitored Application, and able to produce Metrics regarding the application service level goals. The BlackBird architecture is composed by several Application Interface Modules, and by a central component responsible for Metrics calculation and presentation. Application Interface Modules interact with the target monitored Application in order to get performance data in a common format. These data are stored in a common repository and used for Metrics calculation and presentation. The BlackBird system can be specified through a set of pre-defined Configuration Objects, allowing it to be extensible and adaptable for applications with different architectures.