Technology Previews from the Lutris
labs
By Klaus Krull, Lutris Engineering
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
Lutris EAS
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:
- Tight integration
with J2EE tools in JBuilder, Forte, and CocoBase.
- Simplified deployment
of EJBs, libraries, DataSources, and JDBC Drivers.
- Comprehensive JAAS
security support (including Role and Method permissions)
- JavaMail/JAF.
- Enhanced XML support
with a new version of Xerces (1.4) and replacing the XML databinding
technology to make use of Zeus (from www.enhydra.org.)
- Improved performance,
scalability, better error handling on deployment errors, enhanced build
environment, and much more...
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/.
Add-on Modules
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.
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
)
Summary
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.
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