Hi Rainer,

to quickly respond to your quesiton above (and also to your other post), I am in the process of using JBoss AS with OSGi in a real world project.

I first looked at JBoss AS 7.1.3.Final and noticed that several things with the JBoss OSGi integration that I would like to use are still not there and hence I started using JBoss 7.2.0-Alpha1-SNAPSHOT since then.

And to comment on your issues: I completely understand and appreciate your troubles because IMHO JBoss/OSGi is just not there yet. I guess, that's why OSGi is still labeled as "Technology Preview" within the commercial EAP.

However, since we will use JBoss more like a "toolbox" to build our next generation Java framework, it is more than good enough for us to start using it in anticipation that all the excellent work from the folks at JBoss/RedHat and especially from Thomas will lead to a great product with a unique integration between JEE and OSGi.

Greetings to beautiful Switzerland from California,

-Uli

Hi Rainer

We use JBoss AS 7.1.1.Final (Switchyard) and OSGi together with CDI deployments because of Switchyard.

But our Project is really young. I like all JBoss Projects i used till now, and my focus is on JBoss Techs. Because that, when it run with JBoss techs, then they will be used

Both, OSGi and CDI deployments runs great when they dont need to talk together. At the moment i try to find a solution for a classloading issue with the injected BundleContext reference in a war module: https://community.jboss.org/thread/220708?tstart=0

Greetings also from Switerland

Michel

Rainer,

we are not using it to the extend you were describing - we are just starting to set everything up.

But, as I mentioned in my original reply, we are using JBoss more as a "toolbox" rather than a "shrink-wrapped" piece of software. That implies that we will heavily disect JBoss and plan to make some fundamental changes/enhancements to it which we eventually will push back to the community (if my lawyers allow me to do that).

We originally started our first attempts using Apache Karaf, but what pulled me to JBoss AS/JBoss OSGi was the fact that Thomas outlined a great roadmap to blur the boundaries between OSGi and JEE.

I could write a long article about this, but at this point in time my lips have to be tight (my company's patent lawyers make me do that).

Again, I also believe that JBoss AS7 and JBoss OSGi have still ways to go, but it already has the big potential to actually get there. (Caveat: I am only talking about the latest 7.2.0.Alpha1-SNAPSHOT).

Also, and I know I am digressing now, you are "putting water under the bridge": I am well aware of the beauty of Switzerland as I have lived myself in Zurich for three years and are still missing it big time (after having moved away 13 years ago).

-Uli

P.S. I would have responded earlier, but I was out sick and did not monitor the discussions nor my email for almost one week.

P.P.S. Michel: I will respond to your question on the other thread you linked to.

I do not need dynamic bundle deployment and I doubt if any real world business application running on a JBoss Enterprise Application Server will ever(!) actually need that.

Well, we need dynamic bundle deployment with our app server, where we have 100+ applications running at the same time, and we certainly want and need the modularity as much as possible. Before OSGi, our main way-of-working was using EJBs. That works but is hardly ideal.

So what I am doing now - with a lot less pain than with JBoss/OSGi - is create a Felix Framework instance in a Singleton Managed Bean. Use that as system context, register all services with that context and presto: it works :-) Hooking that up took about 2-3 hours. You're back to classic JEE programming with all (most) benefits of OSGi.

 

Everything is packaged in a nice standard EAR file. (Re)Deployment works, classloadings poses no problem.

So... if everything is packaged in an EAR file, what are the benefits of OSGi that you're actually getting? I mean, wouldn't you then have to redeploy the whole ear, thus not getting the modularity benefits? If felix framework is wired from a bean, how do you hook up to that from other deployment units, or do you do that at all?

It does sound interesting though. I would be interested to hear more details about it. Does sharing transactions across different osgi bundles/deployment units work, do jndi lookups all around work, does AOP work, does security context works correctly across bundles, can you share sessions...?

Hi Rainer,

and greetings from Finland :)

OSGi is the opposite of dependency injection. You pull resources according to whatever properties might be applicable. The resources you pull might be different for every method call. That alone is a major benefit of OSGi and makes all kinds of structures possible that would otherwise not be possible or very hard to build. OSGi for me is a grab bag of resources you can access by LDAP notation.

 

The dynamic deployment is - for me - only a minor part of OSGi coming from it's origins in embedded devices et. al.

I think this depends on the usage. For example, if you go from spring DI to gemini blueprint DI, which is using OSGi, you don't pull that much, and I wouldn't really call it going the opposite way. But ok, I understand your viewpoint better now.

But having answered - I hope - your questions: do you actually use (JBoss/)OSGi to manage/run/integrate 100+ apps?

No, not at least currently. There are plans that are being considered, and testing to be done. I do see a use case however.

P.S.: Sorry about the Accenture jibe. There are some few very good people there, but only very few. And after more than one project with Accenture, you get slightly aggressive.

Yeah, well. It's a big company. I can not speak for others, let alone what happens in other countries except my own - I can speak for myself as always having been involved in hands-on work.

P.S. did you get that EJB stuff working?

Hi Rainer,

If you're building an app and have to restart the server every time you redeploy because components get in each others way or the order of starting up is undefined (start 5 times until you happen to get the right order) .... well you've got a problem.

Agreed. But I guess that's at least supposedly fixed with this one: https://issues.jboss.org/browse/AS7-5951

Specific problem descriptions help to keep a discussion constructive. So, if you have something specific that doesn't work in current master I like to know about it.

A note: one reason that it probably isn't used in at least enterprise-level real world projects is that OSGi is still "Technology preview" in EAP. Thus there is no official support for it currently. When it will be a regular supported component, such as jboss modules already is, the enterprise world can start building on it.

But I do realize we're talking in the community world here, just wanted to mention it.