MissionControl

To ensure that all your applications and servers are up and running you usually need to check them regularly by visiting them. MissionControl makes this much easier! (MissionControl does not need NoxymoCore Framework!)

• You configure a so called LifeCheck-URL which is reachable by the server on which MissionControl is running. This URL can be e.g. a direct action URL of one of your WebObjects applications you want to monitor.
• Then you configure an interval in seconds how much time should pass between two connections of MissionControl to try to connect to exactly this URL.
• You configure some searchstring for which the response gets scanned, if we get a response. If the response does not contain the expected searchstring or we did not even get a response the monitored URL is identified as NOT alife!
• You can activate and deactivate the monitoring for this URL/application. The good thing about this is that you can monitor ANY reachable URL. This way you could monitor even all your WebServers you are not restricted to WebObjects apps.

One of the really bad things if you deploy an application is, that if for some reason your application name changes (e.g. you have some new release), or the server where this app is hosted changes, you have to manually correct ALL hyperlinks in your websites where you did provide startup-URL's for this app. MissionControl makes this much easier AND provides an intelligent hyperlink!

• Instead of providing concrete startup-URL's for your applications on your websites, you use some special URL which connects to MissionControl and redirects the user automagically.
• This has several advantages: At first you do not need to change URL's any longer in your website because the URL to connect to MissionControl stays the same all time. Secondly by putting MissionControl inbetween your app and your website, the hyperlink will redirect differently for certain cases.
• If your application is in trouble and not reachable, the hyperlink does not try to connect the user to your faulty app. Instead MissionControl provides some nice page informing the user about the problem.
• You can provide for different cases different so called Failover-URL's which get called/used in case of error for redirection. (by the way the redirection is a real redirection conforming to the http-protocol)
• In addition to providing an intelligent hyperlink it is also possible to use an intelligent graphical startbutton which provides different graphics for different cases.

Here are three examples of buttons for three different states:

All these features about automagic hyperlinking to the correct site does not help you much, if you do not get the information, that something is wrong with your server or application. You need to get notified! MissionControl makes this much easier AND provides you instantly with some message on your mobile phone!

• You just cannot keep an eye on application-servers 24 hours nonstop. MissionControl will do that for you. And you can go to friends without beeing frightened to lose customers.
• All you need to do is to enter some mobile phone number which should be connected in case of error, and activate the notification option. You can even enter a second number for security reasons which gets notified in parallel.
• Attention: For SMS-Notification to work, MissionControl must be connected to the internet because it sends its SMS messages via internet. You need to register a SimpleWire-Account for some small money (about 30 USD for some Evaluation-Account) and enter your account-data into MissionControls configurations screen.
• Once you have done this, you get an SMS (which is sent via simple wire service) for each app, which fails and which had SMS-Notification turned on. Just be sure your mobile phone has enough battery power and is turned on.

Beeing really professional means beeing very smart to your customer. Providing the best experience for your customer. MissionControl makes this much easier AND helps you during maintenance phases for webobjects applications or other servers!

• Every WebObjects application and/or server once needs to be stopped e.g. for some maintenance. Perhaps you need to update the application itself, or something on your server. MissionControl will help you to communicate to your customers in a friendly way that some maintenance is going on during this time.
• You just enter some small portion of text which should explain to your customers the situation, and then you activate the so called Maintenance Mode for the monitored app/server.
• All customers hitting the start-button during this phase get some useful information while you update your server or whatever you need to do. If you are unsure how many people try to access during your operations, you just need to have a look at the logged information of MissionControl.
• As soon as your maintenance is over you just quit this mode and everything is back to normal immediately.

To get some quick information about how many users have entered your application by use of the start-button you usually need to go to JavaMonitor. MissionControl makes this much easier AND collects information about the number of hits!

• Every time a person clicks on the intelligent hyperlink/button MissionControl counts this click. You can get a glimpse on how many hits were registered by expanding the log.
• The logging of hits is especially useful because it differentiates between hits during normal operations and hits registered during trouble. This way you could exactly see how many frustrated customers you might have because of some trouble phase.
• You do not need to stop your monitored application to reset the logged data. You can restart the statistics and log-data at any time without the need to stop something (like e.g. in JavaMonitor).