Tim Bauer’s Running Thoughts

Watched this in that there is an ongoing market swell in all technology stacks around SOA, ESB, BPEL, etc. Go here:

LINK

or hit http://www.jboss.com/services/online_education and look for SOA Part II. That said this webcast is definitely worth watching for a variety of reasons.

1. Burr has clarity. Burr is thier evangelist on the technology stack and he does a great job pulling it all together (what it is, why to use it, how JBoss does it, etc). More so than other vendors I have seen speaking on the topic. So just for that you should watch (as many of us also don’t have clarity — i wont name names).
2. The Power of Open Source a BizTalk Competitor overnight? Later in the webcast they demo’d thier beta ESB product and its pretty robust. Will be available in q4 of this year. The key “AH HA!” was that thier code base came from an insurer that donated thier custom ESB to JBoss. DONATED. Welcome to the next generation of software. Companies build out complex CUSTOM frameworks and then lobby to get it adopted (for free) into the overall community champion (JBoss).
3. Nice BPEL Overview Alot of clients are starting to jawbone on BPEL. GE for example. Keep in mind that BPEL is, in short, a variant of what BizTalk does. Enables orchestrations etc. Rather impressive demostration of how that integrates w/ Eclipse (beta designer granted but BPEL spec isn’t formal to q4 - nov - anyway) with a similar look and feel to MSFT VS and/or BTS Designer. I was suprised with how close it was in look and feel.

In summary, it is clear that JBoss is moving faster than I thought possible. Powered by the contribution of the community and large code base donations I think they will make a strong run at maintaining thier hold on current clients from the MSFT push while stealing other clients from both camps (BEA/IBM, MSFT) for a Total Cost of Ownership play. Will be fun to watch over the next few years.

Here are my detail notes for those amused

Quote:
• Bruce Sutter - Tech Evangelist for JBOss
• Agenda
…………..○ Catalysts
…………..○ WS-*
…………..○ BPEL
…………..○ Service Bus
• 2:00 Catalysts
…………..○ Agility
…………..○ M&A
…………..○ Current Hundreds of technologies
…………..○ Users might be many roles
……………………….§ Data scattered across enterprise
……………………….§ EVPs Budgets create fragmentation
…………..○ Portals spawning (6 per BU, 10-12 Bus per org)
……………………….§ Customers want single point of entry
……………………….§ B2B, B2C, etc
…………..○ Swivel Chair Integration
……………………….§ Fax, Web, Call 4 Report, Web Service,
…………..○ JBoss SOA Engines
……………………….§ jBPM. Process driven. Human or batch
……………………….§ jBPM BPEL. Unique orchestration for web services (Have to have WSDLs). All communication to BPEL process is SOAP call. Invoke Ruby, etc.
……………………….§ Rules Engine. Production Rules Engine.
……………………….§ J2EE / Java EE 5 Services (JMS, EJB, WS, Hibernate JPA)
……………………….§ JBOss App Server (Swing, Browser, .NET, Batch, External)
• 11:30 - WS-*
…………..○
…………..○ Use JIRA to vote on functionality
…………..○ WS-Eventing.
…………..○ WS-Security.
……………………….§ Before, had a login process to get security token. Encryption via SSL (tying to HTTP transport). So if you go to ESB you might have segments that don’t support HTTP.
…………..○ WS-Addressing (JSR 261)
……………………….§ Before, endpoint was in HTTP Header. Take SOAP to server and goto post command parm at end. Problem multiple stopping points not easy (Service BUS enables this)
…………..○ WS-Policy.
…………..○ MTOM
…………..○ WS-Context. Maintain state conversations. Like a cookie.
…………..○ WS-Coordination. Business activity for long running compensating transactions.
…………..○ WS-AtomicTransaction. Two phase commit
• BPEL
…………..○ JBOSS resources on committee. November 2006 will get ratified.
…………..○ BPEL is part of jBPM. Beta 1.1
…………..○ BPEL fixes WSDL
……………………….§ Creates ordering.
……………………….§ Concurrency
……………………….§ Choreography w/ external entities
…………..○ XML, WSDL API to it, Can consume other WSDLs, allows for state, allows asynch of other web services (forking) and rejoin
…………..○ Key words -
…………..○ BPEL file overview - import, partnerlinks (anyone interacting with in/out), sequence tag — receive, assign, invoke, replay, flow, etc.
…………..○ 21:00 — DEMO - Eclipse - BPEL Designer (Alpha)
……………………….§ He will send you doco if asked to setup a basic model
……………………….§ Very similar look and feel to BTS (MSFT)
……………………….§ Task definition deploys par file to app server.
……………………….§ Example of a form doing BPEL (invoke a BPEL process). Add webservice to form. See WSDL file w/ BPEL process. Code is basically a call to the PROXY.
……………………….§ There are differences in BPEL spec and Designer (again he can send doc to cross chasm for now)
…………..○ 26:00 - JBoss ESB Beta 1
……………………….§ Came out just last week
……………………….§ Rosetta code base donated by a Large Insurance company. Running thousands of transactions. 3000 employees, 40 locations, 2 million customers.
……………………….§ Donation June 2006
……………………….§ Beta 3q 2006
……………………….§ First GA is 4th 2006
……………………….§ ESB - Listeners and Actions provide transport and message mediation
……………………………………□ Listeners - Some connectors - like file, http, ftp, jms, email, soap … are avail now. Seam in front of web/portal is also there
……………………………………□ Actions - Pluggable Arch — Transform, route, security, mgmt, JBoss ESB, Service Registry, Event Log, Composition Engine (BPEL, Seam, jPDL, Scripting, Process Store)
……………………….§ Out of Box - Listeners
……………………………………□ File
……………………………………□ SQL Table Poller
……………………………………□ JMS Queue topic listener
……………………………………□ Web Service Invoke to Bus
……………………………………□ Working on HTTP Listener (REST calls)
……………………………………□ FTP / SFTP (coming)
……………………….§ Core Services
……………………………………□ Service Registry
……………………………………□ Persistent Event Repository
……………………………………□ Notification Service - Msg queue to msg queue notification of a process
……………………….§ Messages
……………………………………□ Serializable Java Objects and/or XML
……………………………………□ Transformation declarative and java based
……………………….§ Usage
……………………………………□ NOW–File System -> JBoss ESB -> File System
………………………………………………..¨ FUTURE - add notifications, transformation
……………………………………□ Message Queue - MQ Cluster - MQ
………………………………………………..¨ Same as above
………………………………………………..¨ Registering in specific transaction events .. Listen for certain events … decoupled integration
……………………………………□ Combined Usage Example
………………………………………………..¨ Multiple listeners and multiple actions
………………………………………………..¨ FTP Poll, persist msg, log, email on rcpt, transform, post to file repository. Now you can do that in ESB.
……………………….§ 36:00 - Getting Started
……………………………………□
……………………………………□ Need latest version of EJB3.
……………………………………□ There is a a JEMS Installer (gui installer that installs EJB3)
……………………….§ 38:00 - Demo
……………………………………□ Config File (listener) review
……………………………………□ Show how ESB picks up files in momements, acts on it through ESB process, and spools out. In CMD window.
……………………………………□ Email example w/ notification. 4 lines in the config file of ESB listener to get it working.
……………………………………□ Notification to JMS. Same config file for listener. Different config lines (4) to push to JMS Queue. JMX console shows the messages going through. Then you could have a bean or process respond to that message.
……………………………………□ Multiple steps in same listener (hard code or via GUI in Eclipse). File listener sends alert to queue. The listener on that queue. Show how they bat the message back and forth between the listeners and the associated code behind the listener.
……………………….§ 47:00 - Trail Blazer Demo
……………………………………□ Advanced demo of capability
……………………………………□ Customer interact w/ web or vb that hits services that hits ESB gets persisted then gets managed from there in ESB. Multiple listeners act on the single message (partner network model)

watched this webcast this morning as I was curious how JBOSS was addressing ECM given they really don’t have a ECM product.

LINK

Some keys I took away:

1. Marketing similar to MSFT They wouldn’t want to admit it but they are going to market similar to MSFT. They own the core infrastructure and then expect vendor partners to build solutions on top of it to address client needs. Alfresco (the vendor talking with them) did just that … building a first version of a ECM suite on top of JBOSS infrastructure.
2. Alfresco a mini-me Sharepoint? It was interesting to watch the demo (the first 30 minutes was thier spin on the portal market — which i skipped) in that i could see ’some’ of the sharepoint functions at play. The real question (as with all client decisions on investment) is what capabilities do they need from thier, in this case, WCM framework and where there are gaps in needed capabilities from different approaches how much does it cost to close them. This may or may not lead to Alfresco on JBOSS being the right model. Was intriguing though. Did I mention it is free as well $-).
3. “Support from the Source” Interesting tagline that RedHAT and Alfresco are pushing.

Here are the detail notes for those amused.

• Industry Issues Webinar on Portals
• Alfresco is the partnering vendor
• Overview
………….○ JBOSS
……………………..§ Support from the source
………….○ Alfresco
……………………..§ First opensource cms
……………………..§ Model documentum, filenet
……………………..§ Founded documentum
…………………………………□ Has documentums team now for sdks
…………………………………□ Has interwovens wcm team
• 5:00 - Portal definition
• 8:50 - What is knowledge mgmt
• 34:00 - Demo of Integration of JBOSS portal w/ Alfresco portlets in Jboss
………….○ Team, news, doc library, discussions
………….○ Show 1 portlet jboss wise
………….○ Show editing of static content w/ an ordered approval process
……………………..§ Version control and detail
………….○ Have virtual directory functionality (so explorer view for users)
………….○ Rules are available on drop
……………………..§ Document properties extracted to ecm product
……………………..§ Pdf version created automatically
……………………..§ Mail (via thunderbird)
………….○ RSS feeds that communicates new information in the portal
………….○ Ability to search for a person by skill (not shown how) .. Similar to people finder in MSFT
………….○ Templates (smartplaces) .. That has a similar UI, files, process, auditing etc (ala sharepoint)
………….○ [bauer - key question pricing vs SP for Alfresco, otherwise they are short]
………….○ Concept of ’spaces’ … which is your doc repositories that hoave all the doc versioning / library functions.
………….○ Shows creating a rule in space
……………………..§ Workflow, meta extract, transform, set aspects (like templateabe, versionable, translateable,etc), move to specific space, etc
• 49:00 - Demo done .. Jabber
………….○ Develop rules, aspects, actions are possible in their framework
………….○ Rhino JavaScript engine included
………….○ Really enables record management
……………………..§ For example just a few scripts are required for DOD compliance w/ Records Management
• 50:00 - Q&A
………….○ How compare to other OS CMS? Like OpenCMS …
……………………..§ want to address WCM space but more importantly hit ECM (like RM, and DCM, Image Mgmt, etc). 20% of market is WCM. That is why they hired interwoven for WCM and DCM team for other areas.
………….○ Wiki?
……………………..§ Later this year releasing a WIKI interface. Open up arch later as well to PHP to allow the strong WIKI solutions based on PHP in as well
………….○ Portlets created / embedded?
……………………..§ What was demo’d was out of box
……………………..§ Free market templating lang creates team spaces that pull from the vanilla product
……………………..§ High end solutions can have specialized portlets but using “FreeMarker” since it can process XML and access Java object model in alfresco (talk to and get document properties).
……………………..§ Look in data dictionary. Look at presentation templates. 10-12 lines in .. Iterations, xpath, etc can be done.
……………………..§ Very similar to SEAM (using that as part of the workflow). Get container data. Iterate a documents children (folder, associated docs) and wrap w/ HTML
……………………..
………….○ Smart Folders. Navigation on meta not fixed diretory
……………………..§ In 1.4 release next coupole of months (q4 minimum)
………….○ Cost of product
……………………..§ OpenSource (Free). Going for services contract.
……………………..§ Support is $10k per CPU
………….○ “Support from the Source” team
………….○ When will doc libs and such be their own portlet?
…………………….. (1.4 version in q4)
……………………..§ John.newton@elfresco.org

Watched this webcast this morning … as always, there were some interesting points:

1. Partnership with MSFT So it seems they have setup a partnership with MSFT along the same lines (guessing) that Fujitsu has (helping clients move to the MSFT OS potentially). I wonder if that partnership sours now that they have been bought by RedHat? Probably but I will check on it.
2. Tons of Releases Last year Last year they defined what a certified JBoss developer was (so that isn’t commoditized .. yet). They also matured thier service offering in many ways. Not surprising the spike in interest in them over last year.
3. Nice overview / visual of product I didn’t expect it, but the majority of this presentation was focused on overviewing thier products and stance in the market … looking back and looking forward … a good primer. I snagged a visual (see bottom) for those amused by such things.

The webcast (webex — so no fast forward) is here:

http://www.jboss.com/services/online_education (look for the one title “State of the Union”)

Here are my rough notes:

Watched this webcast today

Lowering Enterprise Costs via Legacy Modernization and SOA: JEMS - Open Source Platform for SOA.

I started digging around due to conversations yesterday with Randy Bielby and Chris Jackson on tactically and strategically where are we going w/ our java solutions team (outside of staff supp). One core theme that is backed by our client activity locally (example Am Fam) is the consideration in the market for re-assessing if systems truly need all the 3rd party tools (IBM, BEA, etc) versus open source models. The leading player in that space is JBOSS (recently acquired by RedHat). So we are starting to look at how we might support that type of discussion with our clients here and if it makes sense.

In that vein, I was intrigued by this webcast … given our focus Nationally on this ‘Legacy Modernization’ concept as well. Truth be told I didn’t get much on that topic but I did take away a few keys:

I will continue to dig around in this area as I am intrigued by the value proposition for our middle market clients in WI. What I really want to get to the brass tacks on is the pricing differiantials coupled with the organizational and people change consideration (what is the true cost / savings of switching any piece).

For those amused here is my notes: