One of Java's great strengths as a software platform is its ability to dynamically load new classes. Applets and Servlets have been an integral part of Java and played a major role in Java success story. Their main capability is to load secure and platform independent code over the network at client side (applets) and server side (servlets). JMX takes advantage of this capability in management domain and the mechanism is known as Mlets.
The M-Let (short for management applet) service is a JMX agent service that allows you to load MBeans from anywhere on the network, including a local machine. The M-Let service is itself an MBean and can be managed as such. Information about MBeans to be loaded is contained in a text file called an M-Let file. This file has an XML-like syntax, but the syntax does not constitute well-formed XML. Using special tags called M-Let tags, we can encode enough information in the M-Let file that the M-Let service can locate, download the bytecode for, and instantiate MBeans.
We can also use the M-Let service, in conjunction with the MBean server, to load MBeans without the use of an M-Let file. We simply add the file's URL to the M-Let service's list of URLs that it will search when attempting to load MBeans, then call a method on the MBean server and pass the M-Let service's object name (which we created when we registered the M-Let service MBean with the MBean server) as the MBean class loader.
Architecture
Following diagram provides a brief overview of JMX architecture.
This is how MLet fits into the overall picture.
In progress.................
