WSO2 bringing Ruby to SOA
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With open-source software being formally introduced Monday, WSO2 seeks to bridge the Ruby programming language and the Ruby on Rails Web framework with the SOA and Web services spaces.The company is set to debut WSO2 WSF/Ruby (Web Services Framework for Ruby) 1.0, providing a Ruby extension to support the Web Services WS-* stack. Ruby developers can incorporate security and reliable messaging capabilities needed for trusted, enterprise-class SOAP-based Web services, WSO2 said. But the product also supports the alternative REST (Representational State Transfer) Web services."Ruby, as you know, has become a very popular language the last few years, and what we are enabling is for Ruby to become part of an enterprise SOA architecture," WSO Chairman/CEO Sanjiva Weerawarana said.While Ruby has been popular in the Web 2.0 realm, sometimes it needs to talk to legacy architectures, he said. With the new framework, developers could build a Web application using Ruby and then hook into enterprise infrastructures, such as JMS (Java Message Service) queues. For example, a Web site might be built with Ruby that then needs to link to an order fulfillment system based on an IBM mainframe or minicomputer, Weerawarana said.With the December release of Ruby on Rails 2.0, the builders of Rails swapped out a SOAP library and replaced it with REST capabilities. In doing this, David Heinemeier Hansson, the founder of Rails, stressed that that SOAP and its attendant WS-* stack had become too complex.But Weerawarana stressed REST may not always be sufficient. "[The REST preference] is a perfectly fine position to take if you don't need any kind of these security and reliability infrastructure [capabilities]," he said. WSO2's framework would replace the SOAP capabilities removed in Rails 2.0, he said.Weerawarana's stance was seconded by a user of the company's products, Stefan Tilkov, CEO of infoQ, a consulting firm near Dusseldorf, Germany. While saying he likes Rails because it picks and chooses technologies, such as opting for REST over SOAP, Tilkov said businesses may not be ready to welcome Rails and the lesser known REST Web services at the same time, he said."Sometimes, you have to decide whether you want to fight all of the possible battles at once. Trying to introduce both Rails and [REST] at the same to a company can really be a challenge," he said. WSO2 is providing WS-* and SOAP capabilities for Rails, Tilkov stressed.Still, Tilkov likes REST. "I'm a very big REST fan, and I [advocate] the use of REST whenever I can," he said.WSF/Ruby 1.0 binds WSO2's Web Services Framework for C into Ruby to provide an extension based on three Apache projects. These include: Axis 2C, which is a Web services runtime to support REST and SOA; Sandesha/C, supporting WS-Reliable Messaging; and Rampart/C, for WS-Security capabilities.Also, WSF/Ruby 1.0 uses Ruby on Rails as its deployment model for providing services.Client and service APIs are offered. Support is featured for SOAP 1.1 and SOAP 1.2. The software is interoperable with Microsoft .Net, the WS02 Web Services Application Server, and other J2EE implementations. SOAP Message Transmission Optmization and WS-Addressing capabilities are included as well.Downloadable here, WSF/Ruby 1.0 is offered under the Apache License 2.0. While it is free, WS02 does sell development and production services as well as training for it. Production support prices start at $2,000, while development support begins at $2,500 for 10 hours. Training costs $400 per day per person with a minimum of five persons required.WSO2's long-term strategy includes allowing scripting languages like Ruby, Perl, and PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) to participate in an enterprise SOA.
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(InfoWorld) - Sun is announcing Monday the release of the GlassFish version 2 open-source application server, which features enterprise-level capabilities for running large-scale applications. The company also will offer a beta release of the upcoming open-source NetBeans 6.0 IDE, which accommodates scripting languages. While the first version of GlassFish was intended for developers, the follow-up release due Monday is intended to place GlassFish in the vein of an enterprise-level application server. Highlighted capabilities include clustering, data replication, and centralized administration of server clusters. Improved interoperability between Web services hosted on Java and Microsoft also is featured as part of a Web services stack dubbed "Project Metro." "This is an outgrowth of our relationship with Microsoft," said Ken Drachnik, Sun open-source community marketing manager. The "Open ESB" capability in version 2 enables integration of Web services and existing enterprise resources. Java Business Integration support provides a standardized approach to delivering SOA via Web services, Sun said. Performance also has been dramatically improved with version 2, according to Sun. GlassFish version 2 is based on Java Platform, Enterprise Edition 5. Sun will base its own commercially supported application server, Sun Java System Application Server 9.1, on GlassFish version 2. It will feature an approximately 75 percent price reduction to $4,500 for an annual subscription for four sockets. Sun rivals in the application server space, including JBoss and BEA Systems, have participated in the GlassFish development community because they can leverage technologies available in it, such as the application server's JAXB (Java Architecture for XML Binding) technology, Sun officials said. GlassFish version 2's performance was lauded by analyst Joe Niski of the Burton Group. "I think the performance improvements are pretty good," said Niski, who also mentioned the clustering capabilities as worthwhile. "The basic J2EE application servers are getting more and more commoditized. There are so many free ones out there. This provides really commercial-level performance and scalability to basically a free offering," said Niski. GlassFish has served as reference implementation of Java. It also has been integrated with the NetBeans IDE, allowing developers to deploy SOA applications using business process execution language workflows. With NetBeans 6.0, the IDE moves beyond its Java origins to accommodate scripting languages, JavaScript and Ruby in particular. "The Ruby support is very important because it allows us to really talk to an entirely new segment of developers," said Gregg Sporar, NetBeans evangelist at Sun. "We have room inside the tent for more than just Java developers," Sporar said. The Matisse GUI builder in NetBeans 6.0 supports the Swing framework for building desktop applications and Beans Binding for modifying user interface controls to accommodate back-end data source changes. Also, the code editor in 6.0 has been rewritten and optimized. The profiler, for checking performance problems like memory leaks, now enables developers to stop execution of an application so they can examine what is happening within the program. Version 6.0 integrates with the Subversion version control system. General availability for NetBeans 6.0 is planned for the end of this year. The IDE first was offered in an early-access format at the JavaOne conference in May. Future distributions of NetBeans, starting with the production release of version 6.0, will be offered under either the Common Development and Distribution License or the GNU GPL (General Public License) version 2. Extending NetBeans to GPL is expected to make the platform more attractive to Linux developers.
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LIVE WEBCAST  (Source: Systinet) Organizations recognize the benefits of SOA but struggle identifying an adoption strategy that will leverage existing IT investments, meet business objectives, and guard against risks to existing business processes.Join us and hear Larry Fulton, senior analyst, Forrester Research review lessons learned form early adopters of SOA, and essential considerations for successful adoption. Larry's expertise spans infrastructure, implementation strategies, and governance related to the effective use of service-oriented architecture (SOA).
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Learn about the two crucial technologies -- missing from most SOA platforms -- needed for successful SOA implementations.
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WS-I:  WHAT: The Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I: www.ws-i.org)  will showcase the value of secure Web services, supported by the  recently announced Basic Security Profile 1.0, at Burton Group's  Catalyst Conference (http://www.catalyst.burtongroup.com).
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InfoWorld - Sun Microsystems has added Ruby support to the NetBeans IDE and bolstered the JRuby platform as well, company officials acknowledged on Thursday.
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SOA Express offers a way to move to SOA by  converting code from existing services.
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Rich Zygler has a few choice words concerning the implementation of WS-* web services in PHP and how they compare to other methods (like SOAP and REST).   IÃ¢ÂÂd love to give ws02 a fair shake because they have an open source business model. They have a web services framework for PHP which seems interesting from an academic standpoint. But I think WS-* web services are WAY too complicated when compared to REST.   He points at a certain bit of documentation (to show the "simplicity" of it) and gives a personal example of his SOAP experience with the Amazon API as well as mentioning other opinions on the matter.
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WSO2 is offering its open-source WSO2 Mashup Server product, which leverages JavaScript and Web services in assembling mashups, on Monday. In positioning the product for use by JavaScript developers, the company is looking to enable delivery of more functional mashups than can be built with alternative GUI-based tools. A hosted online version of Mashup Server, called Mooshup.com, also will be launched Monday as a community site for developing and sharing mashups.With WSO2 Mashup Server 1.0, WSO2 anticipates a confluence of Web 2.0 social capabilities and enterprise needs. "Basically, what we believe is that enterprise IT is going to go more toward a social enterprise structure where the IT offerings are not only by IT staff but by anybody in the enterprise," said WSO2 Chairman/CEO Sanjiva Weerawarana.But WSO2 is targeting Web developers who can write JavaScript. "The main purpose of WSO2 Mashup Server is to allow developers to author new Web services in JavaScript," said Jonathan Marsh, WSO2 director of mashup technologies. These Web services can be consumed within other enterprise tools and exposed as an RSS or Atom feed, he said.WSO's mashup platform is not intended to complete head-to-head with more GUI-based business level mashup products. "There's a feeling that we had that limiting yourself to a GUI right off the bat gets you started very quickly, but you quickly reach walls that block you from doing precisely what you'd like to do," Marsh said. Eventually, users of those tools have to resort to JavaScript, he said.Mashups can be authored within the administrative UI, with a text editor, or with any popular IDE, WSO2 said."It's an interesting aspect to choose JavaScript as sort of the primary scripting language," said analyst Michael Cote of RedMonk. JavaScript has been primarily used in AJAX-style (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) development, Cote noted. But plenty of people are familiar with JavaScript, he added.Built on the WSO2 Web services application Server, WSO2 Mashup Server can use information from Web services, HTML, and feeds and publishes the result as a Web service. Each service has metadata to simplify consumption by other mashups and Web services clients. Content and presentation are separated through XML and Web services to enable a service to be consumed by another mashup.Web service and UI artifacts are generated, such as WSDL, REST URLS and JavaScript stubs. Services can be composed from such sources as Web services, RSS, and HTML.Additionally, services can be accessed using a request-response pattern or be programmed to run over a long period of time. For example, a mashup initiating instant messaging alerts can warn transport companies about possible delays when there is snow.By leveraging WSO2's application server and registry, the mashup server gains capabilities for enterprise security, reliability, and governance, WSO2 said.Mooshup.com is being launched in a beta version. "The purpose is to help us drive downloads of Mashup Server," Marsh said.WSO2 sells support services for Mashup Server, with prices ranging from $2,000 per server per year to $8,000 per server per year, depending on levels of support.
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Mike Naberezny has start up a new resource to try to bridge some of the gap between PHP and Ruby and to help developers of either to get a bit more insight into the others' side - Rails for PHP Developers (based on the book published by the Pragmatic Programmers).   Rails for PHP Developers is a new site for PHP developers who are also interested in Rails and Ruby.  PHP and Ruby are great complementary tools that are sometimes seen as adversarial, which is really unfortunate.  We use both and we'll be writing regular articles to help cross-pollinate ideas and promote collaboration between the communities.    There's already some good content there - useful perlisms in ruby, a look at PHP object attributes and some information about the release of the site itself.
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Next month's update to JBoss's Java software suite will add a component key to its SOA plans.
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IBM, Sun Microsystems, and Computer Associates have jumped aboard in support of the WS-Eventing specification for subscribing to Web services-based events, joining original developers Microsoft, BEA Systems, and Tibco Software.
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(InfoWorld) - As any developer can tell you, creating interoperability between SOA components and existing IT environments isnât trivial. It requires a lot of effort and coding. But IBM says it has the antidote for the IT headache: composite business services in the form of wrappers around existing IT applications. Big Blueâs strategy to create reusable SOA services is largely built around technologies and tools that the company received from its August acquisition of Webify Solutions, a vendor of SOA software and services. Webify provides hundreds of industry-specific, prebuilt standards-based accelerators, tools, and frameworks. Its offerings help solve business problems that are specific to a given industry, such as HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) compliance for the health care industry and ACORD (Association for Cooperative Operations Research and Development) standards in the insurance industry. Within IBM, Webifyâs technology provides the basis for WebSphere Business Services Fabric (IBMâs SOA platform for modeling, assembly, and deployment of business services), says Brett MacIntyre, vice president for composite services development at IBM.                                                     âWebify (software) has given us the fabric, the view across the industry of common services used within the industry, and the tools and the methods with which to build these composite business services,â MacIntyre says. Webify also brought relationships with customers in the health care and insurance industries, and a portfolio of about 12 composite business services in the insurance and health care industries, MacIntyre says. Composite business services built by IBM will interoperate through the standard framework from Webify, with ontologies and data models associated with an industry added on top of the WebSphere Business Services Fabric to create a particular component, MacIntyre says. âFor example, a core data model that the insurance companies in the U.S. work with is part of the overall business fabric,â he says. Webify tools, processes and methodologies will also play a key role at SOA Solutions Centers in Beijing and Pune, India, says Jeby Cherian, the head of IBMâs Global Business Solutions Center, one of three organizations IBM set up to create reusable software assets.
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InfoWorld - Tibco Software is shipping its ActiveMatrix 2.0 platform Monday for managing SOA, featuring an Eclipse-based development environment and an enterprise service bus.
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Branching out in the SOA space, MuleSource will introduce Tuesday its Mule Galaxy software, an open source SOA governance platform with an integrated registry and repository.The company also will refresh its Mule open source ESB (enterprise service bus) and offer Mule Saturn, a lightweight BAM (business activity monitoring) tool that works with the ESB.Mule Galaxy 1.0 stores and manages SOA artifacts and provides governance and lifecycle management. MuleSource is positioning Galaxy, Mule, and Saturn as products that make SOA infrastructure software more accessible to enterprises. The Community edition of Galaxy is available now, and a fully tested enterprise edition is due in the second quarter of this year."Basically, [Galaxy] makes services? available through kind of a subscription, like an RSS feed, and it allows you to define [service levels]," Dave Rosenberg, MuleSource CEO, said.Working with Mule software or as a stand-alone component in an SOA infrastructure, Galaxy features a RESTful Atom Pub interface to simplify integration with frameworks such as Apache CXF and Windows Communication Foundation, MuleSource said. Support for artifact types is provided for Mule configuration, WSDL (Web Service Definition Language), policies, and custom artifacts. Enterprises can set their own policies.Governance, MuleSource said, will become increasingly important as the number of in-use services grows. Galaxy increases reuse and lowers application development costs, improves collaboration, and enables centralized control of policies and management, the company said.A Mule ESB user, while not planning to adopt Galaxy, nonetheless applauded its release."I think that's a great idea because the fact that it's open source allows a lot more transparency into what the code is doing and how it is doing it," said the user, Eugene Ciurana, director of systems infrastructure at LeapFrog Enterprises, makers of LeapFrog educational toys. LeapFrog has no plans to use Galaxy because its transactional systems do not leverage its Mule software.In the ESB space, MuleSouce is offering Mule 1.5 Enterprise Edition, a subscription-only enterprise packaging of the company's ESB integration platform. "This is the first time that we're splitting the community and enterprise versions," Rosenberg said.Mule's ESB moves and manages data between disparate systems. It supports multiple transport protocols, including Java Message Service, MQ Series, FTP, and HTTP. The ESB, MuleSource said, can process as many as 30 million messages per minute."We have higher performance at this point, we believe, than anybody," Rosenberg said. The enterprise-level product features remote diagnostics, patch management, and provisioning via the MuleHQ tool as well as support for BPEL and streaming of very large files. Remote diagnostics capabilities allow MuleSource support personnel to assess a system.Nested routers in the ESB decouple service implementations from service interfaces. Multiple models are supported to manage runtime behavior, including SEDA (staged event-driven architecture), pipeline, and streaming.LeapFrog has based its integrations on Mule."It?s the backbone for all the integration for all the Web platforms that LeapFrog has," said Ciurana. "LeapFrog is planning to do over 10 different Web sites and Web applications, and the Mule ESB ties all of them together across different environments and different countries, and it also ties [to] our third-party service providers," Ciurana said.Saturn, meanwhile, can track transactions that go through Mule. It works with Version 1.5 of the enterprise ESB. Saturn is a BAM tool for business processes and workflow. It complements SOA infrastructure by providing detailed logging and reporting on transactions.To provide visibility into transaction flows, developers and operations staff can drill down on transaction details and set message-level breakpoints for deep log analytics, according to MuleSource.Other features of Saturn include process visualization, root-cause analysis, and reporting on service-level agreements.Other companies, such as Iona, also have offered open source ESB technology. The open source ESB market, Rosenberg said, has made ESB more accessible by lowering the barrier to entry.LeapFrog has found that, even though it must pay for support for open source software, it still saves money on it compared to commercial software. The company last year spent almost $400,000 in open source subscriptions, but this figure would have risen to $1.6 million if commercial licenses were required, he said.Support for open source software also is superior to support on commercial software, Ciurana said. "That's the only way these guys can make money. They tend to be more customer oriented," he said.Mule 1.5 Enterprise and the beta version of Saturn are available Tuesday. Mule 1.5 prices start at $7,000 per year. Galaxy 1.0 Community, the untested version, will be offered Tuesday at no cost. The supported Galaxy 1.0 Enterprise product expected in the second quarter will feature subscription support, but no price has been set yet.
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WSO2 will debut its open-source WSO2 Registry on Monday, providing registry and repository services for SOA.Featuring SOA governance and Web 2.0 collaboration capabilities, WSO2 Registry offers a repository for storing information and a registry for locating it. A Web-based interface is included along with Web 2.0 features like tags, ratings, and comments systems. Users can store and manage enterprise metadata in a wiki-style model."It?s a registry and repository product, so it basically organizes and lets you store in a versioned and REST-compatible way all the [SOA metadata] that happens to be in your enterprise," said Glen Daniels, director of Java platforms at WSO2. Metadata can include service descriptions, XML schemas, and configuration data.The company follows MuleSource in announcing an open-source registry and repository for SOA. But don't expect open-source registry/repository products to displace commercial products, one analyst said."Commercial registry/repository products support significantly more capabilities than the open-source products," said Anne Thomas Manes, vice president and research director at Burton Group. "Organizations that are looking for solutions that can facilitate a comprehensive governance program will find the commercial products to be much more helpful than the open-source ones. The open-source solutions will put a lot of price pressure on the commercial products, though.""[WSO Registry is] a simple, lightweight registry and repository product," Manes said. "It provides a means to manage SOA artifacts (e.g., WSDLs and schemas) and provides rudimentary lifecycle management of these artifacts."Web 2.0 capabilities, such as tagging and commenting, helps link communities to SOA, Daniels stressed. This improves communication among team members and across the enterprise, WSO2 said. "We're trying to build middleware that sort of helps out not only with the storing of the technical information but helps out with the fostering of these community connections that actually makes SOA go," he said.WSO2 views its Web 2.0 capabilities as a differentiator between the rival MuleSouce platform.WSO2's structured repository supports XML and SOA metadata formats along with arbitrary data, such as Microsoft Office documents, images, files, and text formats. A catalog of enterprise information can be built that includes services, service descriptions, employee data, and ongoing projects.Also, the product can be deployed in several usage scenarios, including being embedded in a Java application that needs to store resources. Also, a REST-style (Representational State Transfer) Web API allows the product to be used remotely from any language including Java, PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor), C++, and JavaScript.A Web API in the product is built on Atom and AtomPub protocols enabling a feed reader, such as Google reader, to browse registry contents. An AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) interface is featured as well, allowing the registry to be used as a Web application. The product can be used with its embedded database or use an existing database, such as MySQL, Oracle, or SQL Server.Other features include:* A single model of dependency chains, helping organizations understand the implications of changing a service * Deployment in any Java servlet container, such as JBoss or Apache Tomcat * Configurable security, including the ability to work with existing LDAP or Acegi directories. * Resource/collection versioning for browsing previous versions of resources or collections * Links to workflow systems or Web applications to integrate with governance and management processes * Searchable audit logs and search options, such as the ability to search based on tags * A client API to integrate with code that does not use HTTP to obtain configuration or other metadata.WSO2 Registry is available for download Monday and is licensed under the Apache 2.0 License. WSO2 offers service and support options.
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Build a web application in minutes NetBeans and Ruby, part 2 Having limped along in the wake of Eclipse, Sun Microsystems' NetBeans is getting its second wind. One thing that's helping is a fresh focus on scripting, particularly around Ruby on Rails.â¦