3 Replies Latest reply on Aug 13, 2010 11:16 AM by objectiser

    Plan for making plugins available within JBossTools

    objectiser
    objectiser Aug 13, 2010 9:46 AM

      Currently the bulk of the plugins used by Savara live outside of JBoss Tools. The only plugins that live within JBoss Tools are the pi4soa Choreography Description editor tools. This will remain the situation for Savara 1.0.

       

      However for Savara 1.1, I wanted to outline an approach for making most of the plugins available within JBoss Tools. The issue has been how to achieve this, while taking into account the fact that the core plugins (that provide the underlying conversation model, conformance checking and type analysis), will be replaced by an improve (incompatible) implementation in the near future, and some of the functionality (i.e. monitoring UI) are temporary and will be replaced by a web based solution.

       

      Current situation for Savara 1.0:

       

      1. JBossTools
        • pi4soa - choreography designer
      2. Additional Plugins
        • Savara WSDL and BPEL generation
        • pi4soa BPMN generation
        • pi4soa Choreography Monitor - temporary solution until Web based solution available
        • Scribble conversation model (currently a number of separate plugins)
        • Scribble conformance checking

       

       

      The proposed situation for Savara 1.1:

       

      1. JBossTools
          • pi4soa - choreography designer
          • Savara WSDL and BPEL generation
          • Savara BPMN generation
          • Scribble conversation model (combined into single 'protocol' based plugin)
        1. Additional Plugins
          • pi4soa Choreography Monitor - temporary solution until Web based solution available
          • Scribble conformance checking

         

         

        The changes and their motivations are:

         

        1. The Savara WSDL/BPEL generation are no issue. They are dependent upon the Scribble conversation model, but as that will be available in the new configuration, that is fine.
        2. Savara BPMN generation. This was 'pi4soa BPMN generation' - the change reflecting that this will become (eventually) independent of CDL, so the implementation of this plugin (over time) will move from being CDL specific.
        3. Scribble model - currently is referred to as a conversation model, whereas the new version in development focuses more on protocols. Therefore to avoid issues with trailing plugins when the new Scribble implementation is eventually used, the current conversation based plugin(s) will be renamed to a protocol based plugin id.
        4. The Choreography Monitor will remain as an additional plugin. Currently uncertain whether an initial version of the Web based GUI will be available for 1.1, but if not, then the monitor will need to be installed as a separate step.
        5. Scribble conformance checking - this is remaining an additional plugin, as the work is still experimental, and so we don't want to commit this functionality into JBoss Tools at this stage.

         

        Comments welcome.

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          • 1. Re: Plan for making plugins available within JBossTools
            jeffdelong
            jeffdelong Aug 13, 2010 10:31 AM (in response to objectiser)

            With respect to the Choreography Monitor, have we considered keeping the Eclipse version even when a web version is available? The Eclipse version, while not suitable for production, is a suitable testing tool. I currently use it to help debug BPEL processes.

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            • 2. Re: Plan for making plugins available within JBossTools
              jeffdelong
              jeffdelong Aug 13, 2010 10:32 AM (in response to objectiser)

              What is the functionality of the Scribble conformance checking?

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              • 3. Re: Plan for making plugins available within JBossTools
                objectiser
                objectiser Aug 13, 2010 11:16 AM (in response to jeffdelong)

                Eclipse Choreography Monitor:

                 

                Its possible - but would need some work. Currently it is JBoss specific - may be better if could be used regardless of the JMS provider, although being JBoss specific initially is probably not an issue.

                 

                Would also prefer to avoid the requiement that the CDM being monitored is in a Java project with a local configuration file.

                 

                The other main issue is that this plugin is dependent upon the Savara runtime components (i.e. the components generating the events). This is a problem because the release lifecycle of the JBoss Tools and the runtime modules maybe different, and therefore a nightmare if changes occur that need to be synchronized/compatible across both.

                 

                This would definitely be an issue at some point, because the current on-the-wire format of the monitoring events is going to change to use the SAM approach (which is based on a format called BPAF).

                 

                It might be possible to bring this format change forward, and then include this plugin in JBoss Tools, but we need to be aware of potential future problems this could create.

                 

                 

                Scribble Conformance:

                 

                This is the conformance checking between the generated BPEL and the choreography description - to make sure that the BPEL correctly implements the expected behaviour as defined by its role/participant within the choreography.

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