Comments on: Modular, Pfft

By: Matt Campbell’s Blog » Blog Archive » SpringSource, JBoss and the Modular Application Server

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 06:51:12 +0000

[...] Back to the SpringSource Application Platform. I respect Rod and SpringSource a ton and I love how the Spring Framework has changed the way I write software, but I have to wonder if part of this is marketing cruft related to the fact that Spring Source is now touting their own application server. My biggest complaint is against all the talk about how the SpringSource Application Platform is so modular with all of it’s OSGI-loaded goodness. JBoss had a modular application server in 2002! [...]

By: sharps

sharps — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 15:19:04 +0000

@Michael – the plans for the admin console are to take an appropriate sub-set of JON 2.0 features and embed them in the App Server – so yes, some fairly radical ‘ease-of-use’ improvements are planned. Note – this ‘embedded console’ may not be in the initial candidate release of AS 5.0 but will be in whichever version we pick up for EAP 5.0.

- Rich

By: Bill Burke

Bill Burke — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 15:04:25 +0000

@Sebastien:

I like OSGi, I want OSGi. But, the problem, it is just as hard to expose an OSGi service as it was with our JMX kernel. More metadata in many situtions and just as complicated of an SPI.

My problem is not with OSGi, but with those pushing OSGi to end users. OSGi, IMO, is a framework and middleware developer thing. Middleware developers need it because we need a common spine to package and deploy our projects. BUT…IMO, it should not be pushed as an application developer consumable API for building services. Component dependency management should be delegated to the kernel/app server you are deploying into. There’s no reason the app server can’t figure out these dependencies for you.

By: Michael

Michael — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 21:21:42 +0000

Hi Rich,
2 years ago I had to do a benchmark for several AS including JBoss. We have selected JBoss because it was the most appropriate one for my client’s need. However I can say that we’re hoping that the admin console will be improved. I’m not speaking of JBoss ON but about a simple admin console that would allow you to set up the size of a connection pool, define a datasource etc.
Is it on the roadmap?

Cheers,
Michael.

By: sharps

sharps — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 11:43:47 +0000

Michael, thanks for the feedback – it’s always welcome and yes, AS 5 has taken longer than it should have. But then it’s really the first major re-factoring of JBoss AS ever. Getting the stability, scalability and performance to the levels that our large enterprise customers expect takes time.

Currently – I believe we’re getting close to a JBoss.org Candidate Release and we’re still pushing for a supported Platform release (JBoss EAP) towards the end of the year.

So, a question for you – what specifically is it that you or your clients are waiting for in AS 5 ?

- Rich

By: Michael

Michael — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 06:29:57 +0000

Hi,
All those comments about JBoss AS 5 are very nice and I understand that JMX integration will be much easier with JBoss 5. But would you be able to tell us when it will be stable and certified? I’ve been waiting for that for 2 years already .
To be honest, I helped several clients to migrate to JBoss 2 years ago and I’m starting to feel unconfortable about it.

By: sharps

sharps — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 14:23:09 +0000

@eduardo
> Besides, JBoss participates in a number of our projects
Indeed, with a few more candidates we need to discuss next week.

@sebastien
> I’m with you on JMX – it isn’t a technology that should be ‘inflicted’ on humans, and with JBoss AS 5 – users won’t see it anymore.

However – the service modularity in JBoss isn’t so much about JMX – you simply delete the service definitions and the services are gone – very simple, tried and tested.

Overall – there are interesting times ahead as we see how some of these developments play out.

Thanks for the comments, best regards, Rich

By: Eduardo Pelegri-Llopart

Eduardo Pelegri-Llopart — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 13:33:09 +0000

re: Sebastien – Yes, I agree, S2AP is pushing the envelope and is encouraging many more developers to program against osgi than GF, where this is currently positioned at the services/container-level. It will be interesting to see how it evolves; some of these things are just very hard to do, regardless of technology. Also we are all extending osgi a bit, in our case through hk2’s layer. But one of the reasons why we adopted osgi where we could is because that gives us the ability to participate in the conversation around these technologies in the industry and adjust our feature set as we all learn what’s best for the users.

By: Sebastien Arbogast

Sebastien Arbogast — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 08:51:18 +0000

I see two different debates here: modularity at the server runtime level is one thing, bringing this modularity to enterprise developers is something else. I might be wrong but from what I understand, JMX and now OSGi in JBoss, or OSGi in Glassfish are all about modularity “behind the scenes”. Even if JMX on JBoss made it possible to develop modular applications with SAR and so on, it was just not usable enough.

What is really powerful about S2AP is that, beyond the server runtime, application developers can really leverage this modularity very easily, with dependency management, services, versioning, etc. and all of that is based on a very simple and usable standard. THAT is new! That is what has the potential to change the way most of us develop and deploy our applications, from monolithic WARs and EARs to modular JARs, WARs and PARs (even if I’m not really fond of the PAR concept for now).

By: Rich Sharples’ Blog » Blog Archive » Rich’s latest Tweets

Rich Sharples’ Blog » Blog Archive » Rich’s latest Tweets — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 05:07:13 +0000

[...] blogged – Modular Pfft : http://blog.softwhere.org/archives/177 [...]