Before using the MBeans, you should have a basic understanding of JMX technology. A good source of information is the "Monitoring and Management for the Java Platform" web page at http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/technotes/guides/management/ .

The MBeans instrument one or more parts of a running system. This instrumentation gives you real-time access to -specific information and features from a host of your choice, if you configure your Java Virtual Machine (JVM) and the security features to enable this access.

The JMX features are automatically available when is started in a JVM that supports the platform MBean server. Most versions of the Java SE platform support JMX technology.

You start by loading the embedded driver. If you are using the Network Server, the embedded driver is automatically loaded in the server JVM when the server is started.

You may access the MBeans by using an existing JMX client utility such as JConsole, or programmatically by writing your own Java code that uses JMX.