by Simon Brown
Starting from the first chapter (which is the best architectural overview of JMX I've read) the authors provide clear, easy-to-understand explanations of both the how and the why of JMX. The code examples are readable and clearly explained (the authors specifically call out the relevant parts of each example) making you want to grab an editor and start coding!
They cover all of the major parts of JMX very well, including details on each of the different types of Mbeans. Likewise, their coverage of JMX notification is the best I’ve seen. And, since the book is based on the Sun JMX Reference Implementation with detailed instructions on building and running the examples, it’s easy to try this yourself.
There are a few minor snags that don’t affect the book much. They don't start using UML early enough (the first large-scale example left me scratching my head) and they build a few marginally useful things (a Jini connector, for instance). Also, a bit more detail on other JMX implementations would have been nice. However, it’s still the best of the available JMX books. Buy it if you need to use or build Mbeans! (Kyle Brown - Bartender, October 2002)