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Technology Previews from the Lutris labs…

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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