IBM WebSphere embraces OSGi

It seems IBM is hopping on the OSGi bandwagon. Last month, the company announced the open alpha of WebSphere Application Server V7 OSGi Applications. This was likely good news to the OSGi alliance, which has supported the framework since 1999.

The OSGi framework for Java is often praised for its standards-based, componentized approach to application development. IBM’s offering will offer WebSphere developers the OSGi Blueprint service specification and the ability to assemble, deploy and manage applications as a collection of versioned OSGi bundles.

The alpha will include support for the following:

• OSGi 4.2 Blueprint component model for declarative assembly, and simplified unit test
• Extensions to the Blueprint component model for declarative transactions, container-managed JPA and resource reference configuration
• Module sharing between applications
• Integrated bundle repository and support for external repositories to support application provisioning
• Integrated administration of application bundles
• Federation of lookup mechanisms between local JNDI and the OSGi service registry
• Support for deploying existing WARs as web application bundles