NetBeans IDE 6.8 Beta

NetBeans IDE 6.8 Beta is available for download. This release is especially targeted on providing support for the new JEE 6 specifications, which represent a major evolution of the JEE platform toward simplicity:

Java Enterprise Edition 6 support in NetBeans:

• Web Projects with Java EE 6 and Java EE 6 Web profiles, EJBs in web applications
• EJB 3.1 support, EJB project file wizard also supports Singleton session type
• RESTful web services (JAX-RS 1.1), GlassFish Metro 2.0 web services (JAX-WS 2.2), JAXB 2.2
• Java Persistence JPA 2.0, deployment, debugging and profiling with GlassFish v3 application server

The delay of Oracle - Sun deal

In FT.com I read: Oracle braced for EU objection on Sun deal

"Brussels’ concerns centre on Oracle’s assumption of MySQL, an open source software company that Sun acquired in 2008. Opponents of the deal claim MySQL could become a serious competitor to Oracle’s own core business in the long term."

Maybe Oracle is not too worried about the delay: what if in the meanwhile Oracle tries to push Sun customers to Oracle database and middle-ware? Money lost today can be recovered tomorrow... The apparent lack of urgency from Oracle, despite their complaints about "Sun loosing 100$ millions a month" could be a signal they just want to let the Sun's ship sinking?

At present some of the new open-source software technologies Sun is developing are very smart, lightweight and cheap, especially cheaper than Oracle's. Just try yourself to install and setup the Oracle SOA suite and then try the same experience with Glassfish ESB. Why should Oracle let live a potentially disruptive competitor to its present product line? Well, if only Sun were aware of its own middle-ware technologies and, especially, actually able to sell them...

Sun top management unfortunately has done a great job disrupting, wasting and disbanding all the SeeBeyond technical and commercial knowledge in the SOA / EAI field, with a series of totally bad organizational and operational decisions. Especially, they disbanded the Professional Services teams they have inherited from SeeBeyond, leaving the field almost totally naked and unable to provide high level consultancy services. Exactly that same SeeBeyond team that before was able to compete and deliver against all the software giants, despite the fact that, to be honest, ICAN 5 was initially a terribly broken and unstable product. Here we are now, easy to predict when I left Sun in 2007: "I told you, guys".

I admit the EU's objection about MySQL is not without foundations, but while political games are running, thousands of Sun employees, partners and customer are facing hard times.


"A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week."
-- George S. Patton

Fuji Simple Service API, SpringDM and OSGi Integration with JBI

Sujit Biswas wrote an interesting article which:

"[...] shows how to integrate Fuji simple service api with spring/springDM application, We will create a springDM application which instantiates the above provider Implementation , based on spring-config and spring-osgi-config files."

Fuji allows for Spring and OSGi services integration

"The simple service provides the capability to invoke/interact with JAVA code outside of JBI, i.e Service API provides a bridge between code that is hosted outside of a JBI component and service endpoints available on the NMR."

This enables integration of OSGI/POJO services with JBI. Read Sujit's article for more.

About Fuji:

"Project Fuji forms the core component of Open ESB v3 effort and represents Sun's next generation open source integration runtime, focused on providing a lightweight, developer-friendly, and extensible platform for composite application development.

At the core of Project Fuji is a lightweight micro-kernel based on JBI (JSR 208) and OSGi. Packaged as an OSGi bundle, the micro-kernel can be installed in any OSGi R4 compliant runtime (such as Felix, Knopflerfish or Equinox), including GlassFish v3. JSR 208 support introduces a robust, message-based service bus to the OSGi environment and allows the wide range of existing JBI "components" (adapters and containers) to run in Fuji.

Developer experience is a primary focal point in Fuji as evidenced by the level of flexibility and accessibility offered in the platform. Starting with a rapid, top-down development language, IFL (Integration Flow Language), developers can quickly and easily generate an integration application using a domain-specific grammar. The service development model favors convention and configuration over boilerplate code and framework APIs, allowing integration developers to focus on the code that matters. "

Link to Java CAPS Release 6.2 Documentation Center

The Java CAPS Release 6.2 Documentation Center is already available at:

http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/821-0538

Java CAPS 6.2 to be released

There are rumours that the latest Java CAPS 6.2 will be released within end of this month. So far Sun has already published the release notes.

In summary, from the release notes:

This release of Java CAPS uses the following versions of NetBeans and GlassFish:

• NetBeans IDE 6.5.1
  
• GlassFish Enterprise Server 2.1 patch 2

This release of Java CAPS provides new support for the following operating systems:

Design-Time

• Windows Server 2008
  
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS 5.3 (64 bit)
  

Runtime

• Windows Server 2008 (OS: 32 bit; JVM: 32 bit)
  
• OpenSolaris 2008.11 (OS: 32 bit; JVM: 32 bit)
  
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 5.3 (OS: 32 bit; JVM: 32 bit)
  
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 5.3 (OS: 64 bit; JVM: 32 bit)
  
• IBM AIX 5L 5.3 (OS: 64 bit; JVM: 32 bit)

This release of Java CAPS adds support for the following browsers and external systems:

• Firefox 3.5.2 for accessing all Java CAPS browser components
  
• OpenSSO Web Services Security (WSS) Agent for the HTTP Adapter
  
• SWIFT 2009 messages and SWIFT 2009 certification
  
• SAP JCo 3 for the SAP BAPI Adapte

My comments:

• It is a bit disappointing that the IDE is not Netbeans 6.7. I have experienced JAX-WS Web Services deployment issues with Netbeans 6.5 and the suggested solution has been to upgrade to Nb 6.7 (!?!) so I really hope Sun has fixed some bugs in Nb 6.5 before packaging it with JCAPS. It would be annoying to start patching the stuff the day after downloading it.
  
• Finally Java CAPS has an understandable version numbering convention: this release will be called 6.2 and not "6 update 2", which meant nothing unless you want to remember customers a sound close to the Windows service packs...
  

Tungsten

It seems there is a fork of the old C-JDBC project that I was not aware of:

Tungsten is an open source stack for deploying and operating horizontally scaled database clusters, also known as database scale-out. Scale-out works by spreading data across multiple, independent database servers connected through a network. The model offers an intuitive, incremental approach to solving the following important database problems:

• Preventing data loss though up-to-date replica databases and coordinated backups
• Increasing overall application availability by providing rapid database failover
  
• Raising performance and through-put by dispatching read traffic to replicas
• Integrating data between heterogenous systems, for example to support scaling of commercial databases using low-cost open source databases.

C-JDBC is:

an open source (LGPL) database cluster middleware that allows any Java application (standalone application, servlet or EJB container, ...) to transparently access a cluster of databases through JDBC(tm). The database is distributed and replicated among several nodes and C-JDBC balances the queries among these nodes. C-JDBC handles node failures and provides support for checkpointing and hot recovery.

EJB 3.1 specs heading in the right direction

Since a long time EJB were loosing ground in favour of simpler and more effective programming models. specifically, Spring has become the leading framework to develop and deploy JEE applications.

(spring AND java), (ejb AND java) Job Trends

(spring AND java) jobs - (ejb AND java) jobs

For these reasons, a sense of urgency is pushing the new EJB specifications toward a massive simplification. This trend was clearly significant when the EJB 3.0 were introduced, and it is continuing now with the latest EJB 3.1.

Ken Saks, the Specification Lead for EJB 3.1, has written a nice summary of the hottest features. "A Sampling of EJB 3.1" shows you the most interesting news. Together with the upcoming Glassfish V3 , which is a very lightweight and OSGi based application server, the new specs can represent a quantum leap in terms of productivity and win back some developers.

It is difficult to predict if it is too late to regain developers' confidence and market quotas, but the combination of JEE 6 + EJB 3.1 + Glassfish V3 seems to be heading in the right direction: no overload of features but simplification.

Specifically, Ken Saks mentions:

• Ease of Development: the ability to package enterprise bean classes directly in a .war file, without the need for an ejb-jar
• No-interface View: you don't have to write interfaces if you don't need it
• Simplified Packaging: You now have the option of placing EJB classes directly in the .war file, using the same packaging guidelines that apply to web application classes.
• Singletons: A singleton is a new kind of session bean that is guaranteed to be instantiated once for an application in a particular Java Virtual Machine
• Application Startup/Shutdown Callbacks: The introduction of singletons also provides a convenient way for EJB applications to receive callbacks during application initialization or shutdown

Simplification, is the way to go.