After you make a connection to the Java server, the GUI code is transferred to your local machine. The central point of our system is the middle-tier Java server. It not only holds Java classes to be transferred to the local clients, but it also takes care of the monitoring. The Java server is a program that runs all the time but demands only a few system resources. It connects to monitored computers and asks them for new data.
Communication is handled via sockets and is very simple.
We also introduced a very simple protocol for data transfer. Once we choose a computer's name from the list, a second window appears containing all the information about the observed system. We used a tabbed panel to display different types of data. We've chosen a tabbed panel to ease the upgrade procedure. CPU Usage Panel Figure 4.