• Features Overview
• Auto-Discovery
  • SIGAR
• Real-Time Monitoring
  • Availability
  • Performance
  • Utilization
• Capacity Planning
• Controls & Actions
• Event Management
  • Log Tracking
  • Config Management
• Reporting & Analysis
• Scalability & Trust
• Architecture Overview
  • Server Architecture
  • Agent Architecture
  • Plugins
• Supported Technologies
• How to Buy
• Hyperic HQ Enterprise
• Hyperic HQ Open Source
• Hyperic Operations IQ
• Cloud Monitoring
  • CloudStatus
• Feature Comparison

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Hyperic Architecture Overview

Hyperic HQ is a Java-based platform for monitoring and managing software resources. The key elements of the architecture are the HQ Server, which provides centralized management and persistence, and the HQ Agent, which provides monitoring and control on a per-monitored-platform basis.

HQ Agent

You run an HQ Agent on each machine you want to manage with Hyperic HQ. Upon first startup, the agent auto-discovers the software running on the machine, and periodically re-scans for configuration changes. HQ Agents gather availability, utilization, performance, and throughput metrics; perform log and event tracking; and allow you to perform software control actions, for instance, starting and stopping web and application servers. Agents send the inventory data and metrics they collect to a central HQ Server.

The agent's resource plugin framework is the basis for providing resource-specific functionality. Monitoring and control features for each managed resource type are provided by a plugin. The HQ Agent ships with over 70 resource plugins. Additional plugins are created by Hyperic and the Hyperic Community, using the Hyperic Plugin Development Kit (PDK).

HQ Server and the HQ Database

The HQ Server receives inventory and metric data from HQ Agents and stores it in the HQ database. The server provides facilities for managing your software inventory—it implements the HQ inventory and access model, grouping your software assets in useful ways to ease monitoring and management. The HQ Server detects when alerts fire, and performs the notifications or escalation processes you define. It also processes actions that you initiate from the user interface or Hyperic HQ's web services API. The server provides authentication services, using an internal engine or an external authentication service.

The HQ Server is has a built-in JBoss server, and a built-in PostgreSQL database, suitable for small or evaluation deployments. For production deployments, the HQ Server supports an external MySQL, Oracle, or PostgreSQL database.

User Interface

Hyperic HQ has a rich, web-based user interface based on AJAX. Its home page is the HQ Dashboard, a one page overview of software inventory changes, problem resources, recent alerts, and metric charts for important resources. Beyond the Dashboard are tabbed views for browsing inventory, viewing and visualizing metrics, and managing your monitoring and alerting logic. The HQ user interface can be extended using Hyperic's HQU Framework, described below.

Extensibility and Automation Tools Plugins and Plugin Frameworks

These tools are available for extending and tailoring HQ capabilities:

• The Plugin Development Kit (PDK) provides base classes for building resource plugins for managing resources that HQ doesn't support off-the-shelf. Plugins can be Java, JMX, SNMP or script-based.
• The HQU Framework provides scaffolding for developing extension plugins. Extension plugins can extend the HQ user interface, automate commonly performed processes, and implement web services interfaces with other management systems.
• The HQ API is a web services API that provides programmatic access to all HQ Server data and functionality.