Feedback request

We would like to receive usage examples of the MIS. Please send us screenshots or links to live applications that use the MIS. If you want we can add them to the "Existing MIS applications" section of this website. Contact information is available at the "Feedback and credits" menu option.

Introduction

The Monitoring Infrastructure (MIS) is a toolkit for software developers. It provides a generic solution for monitoring events in an application and for graphical representation of those events. It has been developed by the Telematica Instituut in order to enable visualization of the internal behaviour of (often complex) technology towards a broad range of audiences.

The MIS offers various features:

  • Pushing of XML events (typically originating from an application that should be visualized) from a server to a client web browser over a persistent http connection
  • Client side JavaScript XML parsing
  • Mapping of XML events to graphical updates, specified in a dedicated XML based transformation language (XEGUM, XML for Events to Graphical Updates Mapping)
  • JavaScript code generation using the mis-monitor tool
  • Event queuing facilities to delay the event flow of high-speed applications, in order to adapt the visualization speed to human perception capabilities
  • A simulator that generates events that can be specified in an XML playlist
  • Filtering of events based on an XML specification language, called XEMAP (XML for Event Mapping)
The MIS applies the following technologies:
  • Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG): All graphics in the examples that are included in the MIS toolkit have been implemented in SVG. SVG is a XML based W3C standard, it is programmable though java or JavaScript, and that is very extensive in terms of describing graphical concepts.
  • Pushlets: The event routing middleware that establishes a persistent connection between a server and web browser clients. Applications can publish events to topics on the event router. Subscribers can subscribe to topics, and receive the events that are published towards those topics.
The MIS distribution package contains:
  • User documentation
  • A tutorial
  • Examples with source code, including a Monitoring Application Framework that can be used as a starting point for building your own monitor applications.
  • Javadoc API documentation
  • All MIS source code

The MIS was developed for research purposes and visualization of demo applications. Focus was on ease of use, easy deployment and installation. Reliability and scalability have not been addressed in depth.

More information about the Monitoring Infrastructure can be found in our contribution to the SVG Open 2003.