HERCULE: monitoring component-based application activity and enabling post-implementation tailoring of feedback

This paper presents a novel approach to monitoring end-user application activity in a distributed, component-based application. Such monitoring can support the visualisation of user and application activity, system auditing, monitoring of system performance, and the provision of feedback. A framework is provided which, by means of reflection, allows the insertion of proxies into a three-tier component-based system. Proxies are inserted dynamically in between the user and the graphical user-interface and between the client application and the rest of the distributed, component-based system. The paper describes how the monitoring is effected, how information produced by this monitoring can be used to provide a visualisation of application activity, and how this mechanism enables the enhancement and tailoring of feedback throughout the software development life cycle. The viability of this approach is demonstrated by means of a prototype implementation.