Sun is opening its JavaOne 2005 conference with 15,000 people in attendance and 250,000 watching the Webcasts. For an overview of Sun celebrating their first ten years, go to http://www.java.com/en/promotions/java10thbday.jsp. Following are the highlights from the opening day of the conference.
Jonathan Schwartz: The Participation Age
Jonathan Schwartz opened the three-hour keynote and set the tone for Sun moving forward. He said:
“At the end of the day, it’s not about the bits. The interesting thing is that like other technologies, there is an immense social impact to technology. All technologies, if successful, have a tremendous social value. What is the social value of the network? Network is all about participation.”
This brings up the topic of Open Source. Schwartz went on to say,
“The really interesting thing that is happening on the network today is that the end nodes are starting to inform the senders. Individuals are starting to participate. It is not about being information; now, it’s about being connected. It’s about participation. The Information Age, where the uninformed goes out passively to collect information, is history. From Sun’s vantage point, we are now entering the participation Age. The participation age is more than writing code or writing a blog. It is about driving economic progress as well as social progress. It is becoming a blur.”
Sun and Open Source
Schwartz acknowledged that over the past couple years Sun has been working on establishing better relationships with both Microsoft and IBM. In both cases, their effort has been successful. Schwartz announced that IBM has renewed its licensing relationship with Sun around Java for 11 years and has signed a landmark agreement and announced comprehensive support for the IBM portfolio running on Solaris.
Schwartz then went on to say there has been one community where Sun has not had a effective embrace: the open source community. He talked about F.O.S.S.: Free and Open Source Software. He feels the most important part of this acronym is the word free. That is what Sun is focusing on. That is why Sun has so many downloads available today. There is a social aspect to Open Source software. Sun has been working with various countries to show those countries how important free software can be. Everyone should do everything they can to bring more people on to the network. There is no downside to this. It is good for business.
To show their efforts, Schwartz announced that they are open sourcing the Sun Server Side Implementation of Java. He says that this is just the first of many steps.
John Loicono
John Loicono, Executive VP of Sun’s Software Group, started his segment by looking back over the past ten years. He gave the following statistics about Java in general and its growth in each sector:
- 2.5 Billion devices (total)—42% increase
- 1B Java Cards—67% increase
- 708M Java Powered phones—23% increase
- 700M PCs with Java—8% increase
- 140+ carriers—50% increase
- 912 JCP Members—14% increase
- 4.5M developers—12% increase
Sun + Open Source
Loicono then focused the rest of his presentation on the present and gave details on more products that Sun is submitting to the open source community. In all these open source projects, Sun is using the CDDL license as they did with Open Solaris. He recommended that developers go to JDK.net to participate on upcoming products. Mustang and Dolphin can be found on JDK.net.
Java Business Integration 1.0
Now with the help of the JCP, they are moving into integrating the business layer with Java Business Integration 1.0 (JSR 208). This will change how business integrates with Java by increasing business agility and reducing the cost of integration through an open integration framework for Service Oriented Architectures (SOAs). JBI will:
- Define the SOA “Application”
- Provide Extensibility based on standards
- Shorten the Software Development Cycle
- Allow you to do what you do best
More information on Sun’s JBI and SOA initiatives can be found at http://java.sun.com/integration and http://www.sun.com/soa.
Java System Application Server PE 9.0
Java System Application Server PE 9.0 is a platform for developing and delivering server-side Java applications and Web services. It can now be downloaded at java.net. Look for Project GlassFish at https://glassfish.dev.java.net/. It is integrated with the NetBeans IDE and incorporates Java EE 5.
Java System ESB (Enterprise Service Bus)
Java System ESB is the first fully open sourced enterprise service bus implementation based on the Java Business Integration (JBI) specification (JSR 208). It can be found at open-esb.java.net.
NetBeans as a Foundation
Loicono then went on to show how NetBeans is the foundation for Sun’s tools: Java Studio Creator, Java Studio Enterprise, and Sun Studio. NetBeans 4.1 has a new GUI and version control support and will be integrated into many of Suns development products.
Java Studio Creator 2
Java Studio Creator 2 was previewed. It will be shipping in a couple of months but you can gain access to it now through the Early Access Program. The Early Access program reaches out to the Java Studio Creator community to participate and influence the planning and development of the IDE.
- Now built on NetBeans IDE 4.1, which provides new support for refactoring, version control and improved code editing
- A greatly expanded library of JavaServer Faces components, which allow development of richer Web applications
- Support for the visual development of Java standard portlets, allowing organizations to aggregate their Web applications in a single Web portal
- Direct support for Enterprise JavaBeans components, enabling easy access to organizations’ existing server side business logic.
You can find the download at http://www.developer.sun.com/jscreator.
Java Studio Enterprise 8
Another preview was Java Studio Enterprise 8. Its new features enable a radically new service creation, orchestration, and data mapping capability. These new features will aptly aid the development of service oriented architecture (SOA)-based applications with integrated support for service orchestration and consumption, all based on industry defined standards.
Arriving later this summer will be an early access program for Java Studio Enterprise 8, the first enterprise development environment to deliver integrated, code-aware developer collaboration in an effort to accelerate team productivity. Java Studio Enterprise 8 extends both the modeling and collaboration features, providing complete Java Platform, Enterprise Edition 1.4 support.
For more information on Java Studio Enterprise, go to: http://developers.sun.com/prodtech/javatools/jsenterprise/index.html.
Graham Hamilton: An Early Taste of Java SE 6 and Java SE 7
Graham Hamilton, Sun fellow and vice president, unveiled advances planned for Java SE software over the next three years and across two upcoming releases. Hamilton also offered developers an early taste of Java SE 6 software, which is expected to ship in summer 2006, and invited them to contribute directly to the future of Java technology by reviewing source code, contributing bug fixes and feature implementations, and collaborating with Sun engineers to make the Java platform even better. Developers are free to join the community at http://community.java.net/jdk.
Java SE 6 (Mustang)
The following Java SE 6 features will be available for testing and evaluation at the JDK software community site on java.net:
- Cutting-edge development enhancements: Support for client-side Web services, including a revamped XML stack, a new scripting engine, declarative programming support through annotations and improved developer experience for JDBC technology programming;
- Improved end-user experience: An implementation of Microsoft’s “Longhorn” look and feel and the ability to co-exist with the .NET Common Language Runtime (CLR), enhancements to Java Web Start software, and numerous graphics enhancements;
- Core system improvements: A new, simpler and faster code verifier and enhanced file I/O.
Java SE 7 (Dolphin)
Extending these improvements, features being considered for Java SE 7 include:
- Streamlined development: Java SE 7 software will extend the use of generics in the Java Management Extensions (JMX) API and will use annotations to help make the job of writing Mbeans simpler and quicker for developers. This will help speed time to market and reduce development costs;
- Ease of administration: Java technology code and resources will be packaged into modules that identify resources and dependencies and will provide the ability to discover and load applications in real time. XML Web services also will be used for remote management of the platform with JMX API;
- Java programming language updates, including direct support for XML data types within the Java programming language;
- New platform support for dynamic languages.
Java EE 5
The key features in Java EE 5 will include:
- Making the growing power and robustness of Java EE more readily accessible through ease of development features such as annotations, simplified common coding scenarios, streamlined deployment, and new utility classes and helpers;
- Eagerly anticipated new APIs and services such as a JSP standard tag library, StAX, Web Services Metadata, JAXB, easy Web applications with JavaServer Faces, Common Annotations, and a new persistence API;
- Significant enhancements to existing interfaces offering simplified and expanded Web services support, greatly simplified EJB development, extended management, and deployment and updated JavaServer Pages;
- Coordinated efforts across new and existing APIs to further advance the Java EE platform as the pre-eminent environment for building and deploying Service Oriented Architectures (SOAs).
Open Sourcing the Sun Java System Application Server Platform Edition 9.0
Additionally, Sun has open sourced the Sun Java System Application Server Platform Edition 9.0 (AS PE 9.0), based on the Java EE 5 reference implementation and included within the Solaris 10 platform. Available on java.net, this is the next step in Sun’s strategy to provide broader community participation in Java technology development and to empower customers with a low-cost, high-value business computing platform.
By opening up the source code for the Sun Java System AS PE 9.0 and making the latest builds available on a nightly basis, Sun will streamline the evolution of a robust, commercial-quality Java EE 5-compatible application server that is packed with new features and functionality. Licensees and users will also continue to enjoy the benefits of write-once-run-anywhere computing inherent in the Java platform, with continued compatibility testing by Sun.
Sun’s Plans for SOA
Everyone is talking about SOA these days, and Sun is no exception. Sun announced new products and support for new Web services specifications, leading the advance of Service Oriented Architectures (SOA) infrastructures. As part of its strategy to ease customer migration to SOA, Sun is delivering a SOA infrastructure in phases to ensure effective implementation.
Its announcement includes the availability of the latest Web services toolkit, a fundamental component of SOA, to address the performance bottleneck associated with XML processing. The Sun Java Web Services Developer Pack (Java WSDP) 1.6 provides early access to new Web services technologies and APIs, giving developers an opportunity to evaluate and familiarize themselves in advance of general availability in Sun products.
A major feature in this version of Java WSDP is the industry’s first implementation of Fast Infoset, standardizing the application of binary encoding/decoding to the XML Infoset for improved processing performance and throughput. Internal test results show Web services perform 150% to 400% faster when using Fast Infoset encoding of XML, with no changes required to the application, to take advantage of the higher performance.
Providing the foundation for next-generation SOA applications, Sun also announced today support for the Java Business Integration (JBI) specification and the first fully open sourced Java Enterprise Service Bus (Java ESB) built on this specification. JBI provides the foundation for SOA by allowing enterprises to more rapidly implement business integration applications at a lower cost, while extending its capabilities to meet diverse business and IT requirements.
Other significant steps Sun is taking to deliver on its SOA strategy include:
- Demonstrating new levels of integration, upcoming Sun Java Studio Enterprise software will include feature sets to speed the development of process-driven SOA-based applications with integrated support for service orchestration, visual service creation and data transformation
- Availability of Sun Java Studio Creator 2 Early Access, enabling developers to consume data services and visually develop Java standard Web and portlet applications, thereby making it easier to deploy applications that leverage an investment in SOA
- Availability of the Sun Service Registry, the first registry to support both UDDI v.3 and ebXML Registry 3.0 standards, for customers who need to discover, track, and manage increasing numbers of Web services, serving as a cornerstone for true SOA governance
- Availability of Sun’s leading Web services-based identity management portfolio, allowing customers to quickly build interoperable, federated identity and authentication services between multiple partners. Coupled with its close integration into the Sun Java Enterprise System (Java ES), Sun Java Identity Management Suite delivers a secure, identity-based platform for SOA
- Open Sourcing the Java Systems Application Server Platform Edition 9.0, bringing the source of compatible Web services directly to the open source community
- Enabling the foundation for an open, reliable, and secure SOA through new features to be included in upcoming releases of Java ES, supporting the the development and deployment of composite applications, federated single sign-on across service domains, reliable and secure messaging, and service monitoring and management
- Availability of SOA Path consulting services, enabling customers to access Sun’s SOA implementation expertise at critical points in the SOA technology lifecycle ranging from SOA Workshops and Assessments to establishing a SOA Center of Excellence
Conference Overview
Out of the 712 sessions, divided into nine topic areas, offered at Java one the top three topics are (in descending order):
- Java Technology for the Web
- Core Enterprise Technologies
- Java Technology in Mobility
The most popular sessions are expected to be:
- Harnessing the Full Power of JavaServer Pages (JSP) and Java Servlet Technologies
- Web Application Framework—Struts
- Web Application Framework—Java Server Faces
- Concurrency Utilities in JDK Software Version 1.5: Multithreading Made Simpler
- Fast Track to the Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition (J2SE) v1.5
- Developing Portable Applications for the Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE)
You will see numerous articles on these subjects and the topics mentioned in the keynote on Developer.com and Gamelan.com over the next couple months.
