The problem with using VisualVM in a production environment is that it is too heavy of a solution. VisualVM updates its status constanly (every second?). Most monitoring tools update status only every 5 to 15 minutes. Of course that is adjustable, but the more often you monitor the greater the impact on production.
If you are interested in gathering GC data during production, use -verbose:gc and redirect the data to a file (-Xloggc:<file>). That will give you sufficient data and you can turn -verbose:gc on/off from an MBean (a little java app run script a scrfipt could do this for you).
Here are some paper I wrote on GC analysis:
Java Garbage Collection Statistical Analysis 101
Java Garbage Collection Performance Analysis 201
at http://www.cmg.org/cgi-bin/search.cgi?q=java+peter+johnson&x=30&y=10