Lutris is working on bringing the latest and greatest in our
R&D labs to our Lutris Enhydra Journal readers in an increasingly modular
and timely fashion. These ‘Technology
Previews’ will include both early access to new versions of the application
server, as well as early access to new add-on Java Services that customers and
partners have been asking for. The
Lutris EAS services architecture provides an ideal Java Services framework, and
enables Lutris and its customers to support existing standards based
collections of Java Services such as the J2EE, as well as Java Services that
provide alternatives to the request/response programming model found in
Servlets and EJBs. Companies developing highly transactional eCommerce applications
have found J2EE to be an ideal platform for accelerating application
development, but occasionally required Java Services not found in the J2EE,
such as peer to peer services such as SMS, or time based services such as
Scheduling, Polling, and other tightly coupled or non-transactional behaviors.
The goal of this article is to provide a quick overview of
what is in development inside Lutris R&D, how it will benefit you, and when
you can get your hands on it…
To begin with, we will take a look at Lutris EAS. For those who have not used it, Lutris EAS is the first platform to deliver a next generation Java Services Framework (see Sun JSR –111), with its first implementation providing support for the J2EE APIs on top of the extensible Services Architecture. Developers can enhance Lutris EAS on their own schedules with tightly integrated, manageable platform services (such as a Scheduler or CIMOM service) as well as upgrade individual components of the application server, all while leveraging industry standard J2EE APIs.
However, as with all software releases, we weren’t able to
get everything we wanted into the 4.0 release of Lutris EAS. EAS 4.0 includes
the power and extensibility, while EAS 4.1 will deliver simplified component,
application, and service development. Some of the planned key enhancements
include:
And best of all, you don’t have to wait to take advantage of
many of these features. A Technology Preview of the next release of Lutris EAS
is now available from www.lutris.com/downloads/.
By leveraging the Lutris EAS Services Architecture,
developers can integrate existing or create new services that take advantage of
the EAS platform. This integration provides key benefits such as integrated
logging, monitoring, security, management, supporting non-J2EE programming
models, and improving performance, security, management and simplicity through
a single-VM solution.
However, developers, ranging from ISVs to SIs to IT shops,
need to focus on adding value, not implementing plumbing. With this in mind,
Lutris is creating add-on modules that leverage the Lutris EAS Services
Architecture.
Some of the Add-on modules that are in development include:
·
Lutris EAS Scheduler Service
The Scheduler Service is a platform service for scheduling
recurring tasks in Lutris EAS. In addition to tight integration with Lutris
EAS, the Scheduler Service currently provides six schedulable tasks and four
schedule types (with more to come), plus web-based administration.
Read this related LE Journal article to learn more about the Scheduler Service,
or download the technology preview today from www.lutris.com/downloads/.
·
Lutris EAS SMS Service
The SMS Service is a platform service for sending Short Message
Service (SMS) messages from Lutris EAS. In addition to tight integration with
Lutris EAS, the SMS Service provides the ability to send SMS messages from both
applications and services, works with third party SMS service providers, and
can be used to send arbitrary log messages to SMS enabled devices.
Read this related LE Journal article to learn more about the SMS Service, or
download the technology preview today from www.lutris.com/downloads/.
·
Lutris EAS CIMOM Service
The CIMOM Service is a platform service adding support for the
Common Information Model Object Manager (CIMOM) to Lutris EAS. In addition to
tight integration with Lutris EAS, the CIMOM Service provides standard APIs
based on JSR-48 (WBEM Services Specification) for hardware management.
Systems, Telco, or
Storage Area Network (SAN) management applications will realize clear time to
market benefits by using the CIMOM Service in conjunction with the Scheduling
Service.
Download the technology preview today from www.lutris.com/downloads/.
·
Lutris EAS Web Services Toolkit
The Web Services Toolkit provides a combination of tools and platform services
to reduce the time it takes to add Web Services support to applications and
platform services running on Lutris EAS.
Stay tuned for the next Lutris Enhydra Journal for more information on the Web
Services Toolkit….
All of the above modules are implemented as Lutris EAS Platform Services. The benefit? Once one of these services is deployed to a running server (no need to stop the server to enhance it), it is hard to tell that these services were not included with Lutris EAS. Manage these services using the Lutris Management Console. View service log messages in the standard Lutris EAS log file. Use the service from multiple applications and services (schedule a task to send an SMS message that gets information from the CIMOM Service…)
There is a lot of great work going on at Lutris that you can
start incorporating into your applications today. Get a head start on your
competition by putting these technologies to use today by downloading one or
more of the available technology previews. And if you purchase Lutris EAS by
December 15th, we will include Lutris EAS 4.1 at no additional cost.
Let us know what you think! Are these services of interest
to you? What other services would you like to see Lutris provide? Send us an
email at david.young@lutris.com.