We are constantly working on contributing monitoring support for various sources, the latest in that line is support for Tomcat monitoring using the JMX Receiver in the OpenTelemetry collector. If you are as excited as we are, take a look at the details of this support in OpenTelemetry’s repo. You can utilize this receiver in conjunction with any OTel collector: including the OpenTelemetry Collector and observIQ’s distribution of the collector.

Write enough programs, and you’ll agree that it’s impossible to write an exception-free program, at least in the first go. Java debugging is a major part of the coding process, and knowing how to debug your code efficiently can make or break your day. And in Java applications, understanding and leveraging stack traces can be the game-changer you need to ship your application quickly. This article will cover how to debug in Java and how Java stack traces simplify it.

The Java Management Extensions (JMX) framework is a well-known tool for any experienced Java developer. The purpose of the JMX framework is to simplify the management of local and remote Java applications while providing a user-friendly interface. The primary advantages of the JMX framework are that it’s highly reliable, scalable, and easy to configure. However, it’s also known for introducing the concept of MBeans, which unlocks the capacity for real-time Java application management.

For developers who’ve created their own instrumentation with the Java Agent plugin, the next phase of the process is regression testing. By performing regression testing, you can ensure that your plugin functions the way it’s supposed to after you’ve made code changes or updates. You’ll have your own plugin, but to illustrate regression testing in this article, I’ll use the plugin in our example repo.

Java has been one of the most widely used programming languages among developers worldwide for years. So naturally, it is a popular choice for those beginning their careers in development. Learning Java requires more than just knowing the proper syntax and effective code hygiene. Any developer who hopes to use Java for commercial development must be able to quickly and competently identify and recognize errors in their code.

Garbage collection in Java is a familiar term in the coding world. You will come across it when learning the Java programming language. Because it’s built into Java memory management, the garbage collector is one of Java’s crucial features. It helps prevent serious errors and allows programmers to create new objects without worrying about unwanted objects.

Let’s look at IllegalArgumentException, which is one of the most common types of exceptions that Java developers deal with. We’ll see when and why IllegalArgumentException usually occurs, whether it’s a checked or unchecked exception, as well as how to catch and when to throw it. We’ll use a few examples based on common Java library methods to describe some of the ways to handle IllegalArgumentException.

The Java Collections Framework was a huge leap forward when it was introduced as part of Java 2 (JDK 1.2). Thanks to the included collection classes we finally moved beyond the limits of Vector and Hashtable to more mature and generic solutions. With the introduction of streams and functional concepts in Java 8 the framework took everything to the next level. One of the core principles underlying the framework is coding to the interface.

In a previous blog post, Adam Quan presented a great introduction to setting up observability for a Spring Boot application. For metrics, Adam used the Prometheus Java Client library and showed how to link metrics and traces using exemplars. However, the Prometheus Java Client library is not the only way to get metrics out of a Spring Boot app. One alternative is to use the OpenTelemetry Java instrumentation agent for exposing Spring’s metrics directly in OpenTelemetry format.