Monitor and control remote Java servers

Question

I have to deploy some Java servers in a bunch of different networks. For each server, I need to monitor its status and send it tasks to be executed in that specific server. Something like distributed workers.

This servers would be used from different platforms and languages so I need to find a way to communicate with them and obtain the needed information. Which is the best way to do this? I've been reading about use JSONs to communicate with my servers but I'm trying to figure out if there is a better approach.

Another solution could be to have a web dashboard and control all through web petitions but I prefer the servers to be standalone. Any ideas on what I can do?

Answer 1

At the moment I would suggest REST interfaces for your Java server. Since REST with Json is easy to implement in other languages too and you can even use HTML and JavaScript to write a Monitor client. So from my point of view this is the most flexible solution.

An other solution would be to use XMPP to "talk" with the server and "ask" them about there state. I remeber this as a solution for machine to machine communication, but this was before the Json and REST boom so I would not suggest to go with this.

When your other platforms consists of Java and C# mostly SOAP could also be a solution, since there are good code generator for both languages which can create the WSDL from code and vice versa. But its kinda difficult to use SOAP in JavaScript (as far as I experienced) and maybe other languages have the same problem with SOAP.

Answer 2

If multiple platforms are involved, web services are probably your best bet. You can have you java servers expose web services (for status and task execution) and you can call them from anywhere/any system.