1
NOVEMBER,
2004
Troubled JSR 208 goes to early draft review
Though
the concepts of SOA are probably best considered from a business perspective,
it is obviously true that, in the end, an important aspect will be implementation
in some form of technology, and there Java is going to play a very significant
role. So the recent troubles that have surrounded Java Specification Request
(JSR) 208 (usually referred to as the Java Business Integration [JBI]
specification) with the recent departure of BEA and IBM from membership
of the associated Expert Group may be smoothed over at least bit with
the availability of its Early Draft Review. And the JSR 208 Expert Group,
which already includes Novell, Oracle, SAP AG, SeeBeyond, Sonic Software,
Sybase, TIBCO Software, and webMethods, has been expanded by the addition
of Apache, JBoss, and IONA.
The JBI specification is seen by many as paving the way for SOA, so its
appearance for industry comment is an important step. It defines a unified,
pluggable architecture for building integration technology on the Java
platform and specifies standard interfaces for integration components
like BPEL engines, transformation engines, or routing engines, to be plugged
seamlessly into an
integration container. JBI gives customers the ability to architect best-of-breed
solutions, or extend solutions by adding new integration components, while
reducing the chance of vendor lock-in and lowering costs.
Additionally, JSR 208 defines a shared service oriented architecture messaging
facility that is the foundation for standards-based SOA. Customers are
increasingly demanding an infrastructure that allows them to build composite
SOA applications from reusable services. An SOA infrastructure layer,
commonly referred to as an Enterprise Service Bus (ESB), is key to enabling
such reusable services. By combining pluggable SOA Integration components
with an SOA infrastructure layer, JSR 208 provides the essential building
block for implementing a standards-based ESB. It also paves the path for
Java middleware vendors to leverage emerging technologies such as BPEL
in their ESB offerings using consistent, standard interfaces.
The Java Business Integration JSR is seen by Apache as important for standardising
integration technology. Using standard APIs and plug-ins, JBI is expected
to provide a foundation for the extensibility features architects should
be seeking, particularly when many large vendors are moving to lock in
users. There are some who might suspect that this is one reason for the
departure of IBM from the Expert Group, though other large vendors with
the potential for an interest in locking-in users, remain firmly committed.
Both Oracle and SAP, for example, seem committed to offering users interoperability
based on open industry standards and advanced integration capabilities
for business-critical applications based on the J2EE platform.
http://jcp.org
|
|
