Java

Tools add Web services to existing Java EE applications

by Jack Vaughan

“The big technical challenge with using Web services for integration today typically is that you have a number of applications that don’t support Web services,” says Mark Hansen, head of start-up Proxisoft, formerly known as AgileIT. Hansen has created software that, once installed in a Java EE environment, allows you to point and click on classes and methods to create Web services. Continued »

Going Skyway: Using Eclipse, modeling and Spring MVC

Surprisingly, perhaps, modeling has been somewhat downplayed among application development teams pursuing JEE apps – that is probably even more true in Spring-style development. But modeling can be a means to help achieve well-formed, reusable services. Some call that ”SOA.”

Among offerings in this area is Skyway Builder. We had a chance to talk with the company recently. The Skyway Eclipse-based software provides a model-driven approach to JEE application development. Moreover, it supports the much-discussed light-weight aspect-oriented Spring Framework.

Early in the year, the company forged a deal with IBM, integrating its Skyway Builder Enterprise Edition with IBM’s Rational Software Architect, Rational Software Modeler, and Rational Application Developer (RAD). While IBM’s efforts are naturally centered on WebSphere, it is notable that this pact gives the IBM developer an entre to Spring.

Skyway Builder with IBM Rational Software Architect 7.5.1 can help teams mover UML into working Spring. That includes Spring MVC scaffolding capabilities that allow users to generate a Spring apps.
“Rather then hand-code everything we create a model-based approach, said Sean Walsh, President and CEO, Skyway.” The software, he said, also allows developers to do ‘scaffolding’ as a starting point for development. That means creating patterns based on developer inputs, then generating code that can be used or customized. Scaffolding has proved very popular among Ruby-on-Rails advocates.

Related Skyway scaffolding info
Skyway Builder 6.3 Feature Preview – #1 Enhanced Spring MVC Scaffolding - Skyway Team Blog

RedHat JBoss middleware group moves to improve Spring, GWT support

The varieties of Java frameworks and component architectures have expanded greatly since the days when the JBoss application server arose as an open-source alternative to commercial J2EE engines. Now the major JBoss steward is responding. Continued »

Oracle buys Sun for $7.4B

Database software giant Oracle has reached a definitive merger agreement to purchase Solaris OS and Java originator Sun Microsystems for about $7.4 billion. The move follows reports of a breakdown in merger discussions between Sun and IBM that would have set the price of Sun at $6.5 billion.

If completed, the transaction would vault Oracle into the computer market, one that it has patently avoided during its history. It also would enhance the company’s position in Java software, a field in which it gained additional prominence with its 2008 purchase of Java application server maker BEA Systems.

The deal would also place the commercial version of the open-source MySQL database under Oracle’s control. Sun bought MySQL originator MySQL AB in Janurary 2008.

The deal was approved by Sun’s board of directors. In a statement, Sun said it expected the deal to close this summer, subject to Sun stockholder approval, regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions.

OSGi and future directions for Enterprise Java

By Eric Newcomer
Whether the Java Community Process has completely lost its way or not, it is increasingly influenced by external activities. The Spring Framework and Hibernate influences on EJB3 and JPA are good examples. Another influence being increasingly felt is the growing adoption of the OSGi Specification and its implementations, especially the open source frameworks Eclipse Equinox, Apache Felix, and Knoplerfish.

The OSGi Specification defines a dynamic module metadata system for Java and a service-oriented programming model with which the modules interact. The specification defines a registry for service lookup, and a collection of built-in services for common functions such as security, lifecycle management, and logging. The OSGi framework has been adopted by the Eclipse Foundation and by every major Java vendor as a platform on which to build and ship middleware products and open source projects, including application servers, enterprise service buses, and IDEs.

As the core platform has become widely adopted in products and open source projects, the OSGi Alliance began to receive requirements for more explicit support of enterprise applications. The OSGi Specification began its life as JSR 8, back in 1999, intended for use in home automation gateways. Since that time OSGi technology has achieved some level of adoption in various embedded applications for the automotive, mobile telephone, and home entertainment. By September, 2006, the OSGi Alliance had received sufficient indications of interest in an enterprise edition to hold a workshop to explore the possibility of chartering an enterprise expert group (EEG).

Since its first meeting in January, 2007, the EEG has spent the past two years creating detailed requirements and designs intended to better support enterprise Java applications. The work will result in a major update to the specification in mid-2009 (two prerelease drafts have been published) that extends core framework services and adapts existing enterprise Java technologies to the OSGi framework to meet enterprise application use cases. The major features include a mapping of the Spring Framework component model called the Blueprint Service, a mapping of existing distributed computing protocols to the OSGi service model, and mapping key parts of Java EE such as Web apps, JDBC, JPA, JMX, JTA, JNDI, and JAAS.

The industry has already embraced the benefits of OSGi-enabled modularity. Next is to improve its support for enterprise Java applications by adapting technologies already used in those applications. This goal is to help OSGi developers more easily create enterprise applications in a standard way.

Eric Newcomer is a distributed computing specialist and independent consultant. Newcomer is a chair of the OSGi Alliance Enterprise Expert Group and former CTO of IONA Technologies. He writes a blog on OSGi matters.

Application modernization: COBOL meets .NET

How will IT organizations maintain the COBOL applications written by the whiz kid programmers of the 1970s? Continued »

JavaScript finds Harmony

The Web wins, says Nexaweb’s CTO Jeremy Chone analyzing what happened with the ECMAScript working group Harmony decision announced earlier this month. “This is really good for the Web.”

In his view, the debate was whether ECMAScript a.k.a JavaScript was going to become a compiled language or retain its dynamic character. The decision to retain JavaScript’s dynamic quality has now been resolved, Chone told SOATalk. Although he acknowledges that at some level the debate will continue.

Chone’s take on this can be found on his blog.

If you are still trying to figure out what’s what with Harmony, ECMAScript, JavaScript et al, Alex Russell provides some very helpful explanations and definitions on the Ajaxian site.

BEA, Oracle users quiz

Next Tuesday Oracle will announce its plans for how it intends to integrate BEA inside its corporate walls. While we probably won’t get too many specific product roadmaps, we should get an idea of how Oracle intends to handle the product overlap in the areas of SOA and Java development.

Yet there’s a difference between what Oracle intends to do and how BEA users view the acquisition. In advance of the announcement we at SearchSOA.com are conducting a BEA user quiz to take the pulse of that community. We know that we have a large number of BEA users in our readership and we’re looking to get your input concerning Oracle, BEA and how this deal affects your development plans. It’s a quick that should take only a minute to fill out.

The poll closes at noon EDT on Friday, June 27. We will publish the results next Monday in advance of the Oracle announcement.

Sun and SOA: Too much Java and not enough open source?

Dan Blankenhorn at ZDNet has posted some provocative thoughts about the Java CAPS 6.0 SOA suite announcement from Sun Microsystems. His basic take is that Sun fails to live up to its self-generated open source billing. He writes:

A true open source SOA strategy would embrace support for competing alternatives, rather than try to push everyone into paying for (and building) on a Sun-only platform.

True enough, Java CAPS, based largely around the former SeeBeyond ESB, is pretty much all Java platform all the time. I’ve spoken with no small number of people in the SOA space who routinely point out that the Java platform at best is only part of an SOA strategy. Those laments are nothing new. Sun’s approach here is interesting because it’s the opposite of what JBoss is doing. For instance, Sun’s bragging that you get the NetBeans IDE and GlassFish app server with Java CAPS. Yet what if that’s more than you want or need? Maybe you’re not looking for a platform. While JBoss certainly can’t be accused of collecting open source purity points by pushing significant amounts of non-JBoss technology, it is pitching a modular SOA platform.

It gets to the question of how much technology and complexity do you need to pursue service orientation? This is where I repeat the old saw that SOA isn’t something you buy (or download), it’s something you do. Has Sun stuffed too much into Java CAPS or maybe users would be better served to skip the middleware and just use GlassFish? As Blankenhorn points out, in an open source world the app server and service bus ought to focus well beyond each other.

Also, the big SOA-related buzz at JavaOne was around the session on Apache Tuscany. Tuscany is an open source project put together well outside the auspices of the JCP and users at the biggest Java show of the year flocked to it. Apparently there’s healthy demand for open source functionality beyond the Sun platform.

That brings us to the newsiest part of the Java CAPS announcement: Sun is adding MDM tools via a project called Mural. XAware, Talend and Apatar (and others) are already out there offering up open source data integration. Is Mural necessary or does it aim to reinvent the wheel? Eclipse has its Data Tools Project as well. Data integration would seem to be an area where Sun could follow Blankenhorn’s advice and bring some outside technology into the fold.

Sun seems to be stuck in an odd place at the moment where it espouses and embraces many of the laudable benefits of open source software, but it has not yet embraced the concept enough to satisfy the purists or to perhaps even leverage open source to achieve notable innovation.

JavaOne: Sun seeks digital life

If serverside developers and enterprise architects were left feeling forgotten by last year’s JavaOne conference, then they’ll be feeling positively orphaned by this year’s major keynote address.

Sun Microsystems executive vice president for software Rich Green hammered away on how Java provides “a high performance virtual machine” capable of running all your digital life applications. Amazon demonstrated a handheld media devices for downloading and reading books, magazines and newspapers. Sony Ericsson showed off showed off an upcoming unified media device (think iPhone). Rock ‘n’ Roll legend Neil Young stopped by to talk about why he loves Blu-ray technology.

Green did mention that these New Age applications rely upon a foundation of services that can be mashed up, but that was about as close as the session go to enterprise development. Even the GlassFish news revolved around how the OSGi-enabled modularity of v3 will allow GlassFish to become a multimedia app server not solely associated with the server.

Sun president and CEO Jonathan Schwartz claimed his company is “focusing on users.” He threw in enterprises at the end of his list of who those users might be, but it gave the distinct impression that enterprises are becoming a bit of an afterthought with the Java braintrust.

“There’s clearly a battle developing for what will be that next great developer platform,” Schwartz said.

With whom he didn’t say. He also didn’t explain how enterprises will leverage that platform other than RIA development for clients. Sun seems to have a clear picture for where it wants to be in consumer-based digital life in the future. Whether it has a growing vision for how to help enterprises with development problems they have today remains a mystery.