WSRF Plug-ins for OSGi
A light-weight implementation of Web Services Resource Framework (WSRF) and associated specifications as OSGi plug-ins for resource-constrained environments.
Date Posted: November 23, 2005
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What are WSRF Plug-ins for OSGi (Open Service Gateway interface)?
The robust IBM On-Demand Infrastructure (ODI) draws heavily from the Services-Oriented Architecture (SOA) in order to build homogeneous interfaces for accessing, managing, and integrating heterogeneous IT resources. It is imperative that such an abstraction layer on top of the resources should not hamper the resources' performance.
Most of the contemporary implementations of SOA seem to cater to niche application scenarios, where it is feasible to host an enterprise class service container. However, there are other scenarios in which the resources cannot host an enterprise class service container at all (such as with laptops, PDAs, kiosks, network devices, etc.) or prefer not to do so in order to avoid system load (such as with DB2 node). Therefore, a technology is needed that
- provides necessary features of an SOA stack and that requires minimal system configuration
- can work across all class of resources
- operates in an environment that can be easily configured, provisioned, and updated.
The WSRF Plug-ins for OSGi package is a step in this direction. It has the potential of facilitating the optimal adoption of the On-Demand Infrastructure by providing an SOA implementation that is less resource-intensive.
How does it work? The WSRF Plug-ins for OSGi package is an implementation of Web Services Resource Framework (WSRF) and related specifications (such as WS-Addressing and WS-Notification) as plug-ins in the Open Service Gateway Initiative (OSGi) service container. This package provides a set of service interfaces that enable other services running in an OSGi environment to expose themselves as remotely accessible and manageable resources using WSRF standards.
Some of the benefits associated with this collection of plug-ins are as follows:
- It provides the choice of an OSGi run-time environment as the service container for hosting SOA. This technology is highly extensible and configurable; therefore, it is easy to integrate existing service components that create new features.
- It inherits the features of the Reflective Middleware from the OSGi environment, where system services can be enabled or disabled at run time in order to adjust to the system load.
- The small size and robustness of OSGi makes it feasible to run this package on all classes of resources, including small and resource-constrained environments such as network devices as well as powerful nodes such as Db2Node. (Note: Network devices are not supported in the current release.)
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| | About the technology author(s):
The following software engineers from IBM Software Labs, India, contributed to this technology:
- Manu Kuchhal has experience in the architecture, design, and implementation of SOA-based systems. His other interests include mobile software agents, autonomic computing, grid computing, and peer-to-peer computing.
- Umesh Joshi has experience in enterprise Web development, XML-related technologies, Web services, and SOA-related work. His current interests include SOA and grid computing.
- Saurabh Tiwari has experience with various Web technologies, Web and application servers, Java, and XML-related technologies. His major interests include Object-Oriented Analysis and Designs, Object-Oriented Design Patterns, and software development processes.
- Sumeet Singh Luthra has experience in J2EE development and XML-related technologies. His current interests include SOA.
- Nitin Nijhawan has worked in J2EE technologies; his current interests include Web services and XML-related technologies.
- Udit Narayan Sharma has worked in Java, J2EE, Oracle, and MQSeries-related technologies. His current interests include Web services and XML.
- Deepak Kumar Gudwani has experience in enterprise product development and integration components. His current interests include Web Services, SOA, and grid computing.
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