A bunch of great new releases and updates to Sun Software has been
announced. The following are the highlights from these releases
[Disclaimer – I am not the author of these writeup's, just a aggregator of information ]

Glassfish
v3

The availability of the Java EE 6 and GlassFish Enterprise Server
v3, the first Java EE platform-compatible application server and the
most downloaded Java EE application server in the world.

• Java EE 6 is a significant release
  of the enterprise Java standard that delivers major productivity
  enhancements as well as the Web Profile, a lightweight subset of the
  full platform optimized for Web applications.
  

  
  

• Sun GlassFish Enterprise Server v3
  enables faster time to market with rapid iterative development, the
  ability to run dynamic language applications, and enhanced
  monitoring and management.
  

  
  
  
  

GlassFish Enterprise Server v3 is a flexible, easy-to-use,
open-source enterprise platform.

1. It offers businesses the ability
   to easily manage costs and reduce the complexity of their existing
   enterprise server deployments.
   

   
   

• GlassFish Enterprise Server v3
  is based on the Java EE 6 reference implementation and is the
  first application server to support the full Java EE 6 platform.
  

  
  

• GlassFish Enterprise Server does
  not add proprietary extensions and stays true to the Java EE
  standard, lowering the barrier to entry.
  

  
  

• GlassFish is the most downloaded
  Java EE platform-compatible application server, with more than 24M
  downloads since 2006. It is focussed on improving developer
  productivity and providing an enterprise-grade, open-source
  application server solution for customers.

  
  

• GlassFish Enterprise Server v3
  continues to innovate by providing a lightweight, flexible
  platform based on an OSGi-based runtime that improves startup time
  and reduces resource utilization. The flexibility of GlassFish
  Enterprise Server v3 and the Web Profile distribution enables
  organizations to begin consolidating Tomcat, Java EE application
  server, and dynamic language application infrastructure into a
  single, manageable runtime.
  

  
  

• GlassFish Enterprise Server v3
  delivers dramatically increased productivity that comes as part of
  the Java EE 6 specification and enables rapid iterative
  development on multiple languages.
  

  
  
  
  

2. GlassFish Enterprise Server v3
   is production-ready.
   

   
   

3. GlassFish Enterprise Server v3
   offers a huge range of benefits to enterprises because of its
   open-source approach, which ensures a large talent pool of developer
   expertise and a strong partner ecosystem. It also provides
   transparency that enables enterprises to align initiatives with
   upcoming product releases.
   

   
   

4. Developers can easily take
   advantage of these new features through NetBeans IDE 6.8, the first
   IDE to provide complete support for the Java EE 6 platform and
   GlassFish Enterprise Server v3.
   

   
   

5. Developers using Eclipse can use
   the GlassFish Tools Bundle for Eclipse 1.2, enhanced to support the
   Java EE 6 platform and GlassFish Enterprise Server v3. Download
   it!
   

   
   

6. Flexible pricing options are
   available.
   

   
   

Sun Message Queue 4.4 Update 1

MQ 4.4u1 is now shipping and is
available for immediate download and purchase. 4.4u1 is included in
GlassFish v3.

These are the highlights of the new features of MQ 4.4u1:

• JMS Bridge — for integrating to
  any JMS 1.1 compliant provider
  

  
  

• STOMP Bridge — a text oriented
  interface that can be used by scripted as well as programmed client
  applications
  

  
  

• Embedded support for custom
  solutions — Customers can now embed the MQ broker into their own
  application
  

  
  

• IPS support — Support for update
  center 2.2 as well as enabling MQ support for all types of Solaris
  Zones
  

  
  

• A new transaction log
  implementation provides a 1.5x boost for persistent transactional
  messages for clustered configurations as well as other general
  improvements. You can learn more by reading the updated
  documentation available at [http://docs.sun.com/coll/1307.7].
  

  
  

Finally, all the details are
available in the technical training webinar which was recorded and
is available at these links:





Part
1 – https://slx.sun.com/1179275731 – This section covers the
overview of MQ4.4 and JMS bridge





Part
2 – https://slx.sun.com/1179275732 – This section focuses on
STOMP protocol support, UMS updates, and IPS packaging





Part
3 – https://slx.sun.com/1179275733 The conclusion







Community users can also refer to the
development information available at

https://mq.dev.java.net/4.4.html.

Netbeans 6.8

The NetBeans IDE 6.8 is available for download free of charge at
http://www.netbeans.org.

KEY UPDATES TO THE NETBEANS 6.8 IDE

• Complete Java EE 6 Support: Java EE 6 language
  features simplify Java application development with less XML
  configuration, more annotations and more POJO-like development.
  

  
  

• GlassFish v3 Support: Developers can easily target and
  deploy to GlassFish v3, including the new lightweight GlassFish v3
  Web Profile.
  

  
  

• JavaFX(TM): The latest version of the NetBeans editor
  provides improved code completion, hints and navigation for JavaFX.
  

  
  

• PHP Support: The NetBeans IDE expands its support of
  dynamic languages with support for PHP 5.3 and the Symfony
  framework.
  

  
  

• Tighter Integration with Project Kenai: Project Kenai, a
  collaborative environment for hosting open source projects, now
  delivers full support for JIRA and improved instant messenger and
  issue tracker integration. For more information visit http://www.kenai.com.
  

  
  

• C/C++ Profiling: The new Microstate Accounting indicator and
  I/O usage monitor help developers profile and tune C/C++
  applications.
  

  
  

• NetBeans Platform: As a rock-solid application framework for
  Swing applications, the platform saves developers a huge amount of
  time and effort by providing commonly-used facilities such as menu
  items, toolbar items, keyboard shortcuts, and window management out
  of the box.
  

  
  

Additional information is available at:

NetBeans 6.8
IDE – http://netbeans.org/community/releases/68/

Java EE 6 -

http://java.sun.com/javaee/

GlassFish v3 -

http://www.sun.com/glassfishv3

Has been a long time, since I posted on this blog. There has been a few product announcements, which are exciting:

1. Sun release new Sun Role Manager 5.0 and Directory Server Enterprise Edition 7.0. Click this link for more details
2. Sun Releases New Update for Solaris 10 Operating System : Builds on Solaris 10 Innovation With New Streamlined Administration Capabilities, Solaris ZFS Updates and Expanded Support for New Processors
3. Sun Announces New GlassFish Communications Server and Key Customer Wins Cedar Point Communications and Malden Labs Choose Sun for Next-Generation Network Platforms
4. Sun Announces Java Communications Suite 7 – Sun introduces Release 7 of Java Communications Suite that includes a robust and highly scalable indexing and search service, a new CalDAV compliant calendar server, and enhancements to Convergence, the state-of-the-art AJAX Web 2.0 client. Java Communications Suite is the #1 messaging and collaboration platform for service providers. Eight of the top nine operators and hundreds of enterprises worldwide have already deployed more than 170 million seats of the Java Communications Suite.

Lots of new releases, exciting new features …

Credit: Image linked from http://www.oracle.com/features/suncustomers.html

Alfresco is a very popular open source Content management system (CMS) and Document management system (DMS). It competes well with commercial offerings. There has been a few instances of requests from technical folks, about the integration points between Alfresco and Sun software, primarily Glassfish application server, Sun Webspace portal server and OpenSSO.

Alfresco and Glassfish
Running Alfresco on Glassfish application server is pretty easy. This is well documented in Amanda’s blog and also the Alfresco web site.

Alfresco and OpenSSO
Alfresco is well integrated with OpenSSO and Sun Directory server.

Alfresco and Sun Webspace Portal server
The content and documents managed in Alfresco can be displayed or administered in Sun webspace portal via Portlets. The Alfresco web services API or the CMIS api can be used to accomplish this . There is also a white paper written by our ISV engineering team, let me know if you need it.

On a final note, the Sun webspace server has a built in content management and document management system. If your requirements can be met with what Webspace can offer, then there is no need to use a separate CMS and DMS system

I had a query recently from a partner, who was planning to integrate Microsoft .Net applications with MySQL. I am not an expert on .Net, but I looked around and found the following resources and pointers that will help:

1. There is an excellent webinar on Microsoft Entity framework and using MySQL at the Mysql website.
2. MySQL .Net connectors are available for download at the MySQL website
3. Another persistence framework, nHibernate can also be used for data persistence. I just googled, and found this useful link and this link about the integration.

Hope this helps ..

Just got the news, that I have cleared the requirements to become “The Open group – TOGAF (The Open group Architecture Framework) Certified Architect”.

While, I am also a Sun Certified Enterprise Architect SCEA for Java EE 5, there were some significant differences between SCEA and TOGAF, in my view. SCEA is more focussed around technology and is Java and Java EE focussed, is certainly more intensive and multi step (you need to do a online quiz, assignment and an essay). TOGAF is more centred around Enterprise architecture, not just technology architecture and is also technology agnostic. I would say, there is a significant amount of learning and unlearning, to become a TOGAF practiioner. But, I am very happy today to be a part of the large family of TOGAF certified people. We can all talk in the same vocabulary and lingo

A recent email invite to an “enterprise architecture summit” in Bangalore, kind of triggered a stream of thoughts on EA frameworks, and my experience with a few of them. I have used or am aware of a few EA frameworks, and having been at Sun, we also follow(ed) a framework. Well, I have listed the EA frameworks that I know about and my comments are (these are my personal comments, not Sun’s. obviously, these are “tainted/biased” by the kind of work I do):

1. Zachman’s framework – This is very popular, keep seeing plenty of training’s and workshops being organized in India. I have looked at this, and it definitely is useful. But, I have a couple of points on this. First, its proprietary and second, it seems very laborious and very painful to document every single of the boxes in the Zachman’s chart. Beyond, documenting “current state” of an EA, I am not too sure, it will help in the complete IT lifecycle. Of course, plenty of people are using it, and obviously see value in it.
2. TOGAF – The open group architecture framework - I am very impressed by TOGAF, and I love the way we can use TOGAF for its step by step approach, being an open standard, being mature and for its usefulness in the complete IT life-cycle. BTW, Sun is a platinum member of the TOGAF foundation.
3. DODAF and Federal Enterprise framework – Both very US government specific framework for US federal projects.

Ultimately, in my view, the effectiveness of any EA framework, lies in practicing it and incorporating it in the corporate DNA of any company. There should be a buyin from the top management, they should be convinced about the effectiveness of using EA frameworks. All right then, Happy weekend.

I upgraded my old gen iPhone OS to ver 3.0. I love the new version, lots of neat features like searching emails (finally), copy and paste, landscape keyboard etc etc. Of course, not all the new features are available on my old phone, but the new features are still great.

I did my upgrade via the iTunes update center, the update went through like a breeze. The only problem was, my GPRS edge settings disappeared. I googled around, found that iPhone creates a edge setting to be something else than what you need. The solution, is to create a new profile using the iPhone configuration tool , set the apn host name to be www for Vodafone India, export it to a file, email the config file as an email attachment and send it to yourself. Then you need wifi to connect to your email server, extract the attachments and the edge settings worked again. Other than this, the upgrade was a smooth process …

I and my team, were fortunate enough to get sponsored to attend a 5 day MySQL for DBA’s training in Bangalore recently. Even though, I am not a DBA, nor do I intend to become one, but there is upswell of interest for MySQL in India, every customer and partner seems to want to know more about it and there is ever growing linkage between other Sun Middleware products and MySQL.

Lets take the following products and how MySQL fits in:

• Glassfish and MySQL – Apart from being the perfect fit in terms of price/performance etc etc, MySQL makes for a perfect choice, when you are building Web applications, intranet/internet apps, Web 2.0 apps. All you need is the MySQL JDBC driver, Create a connection pool for MySQL and there you go !! If you are using any of the popular frameworks like Struts, Spring, Hibernate or iBatis, its all very easy.
• Sun GlassFish Web Space Portal Server and MySQL: By default, Web Space Server is bundled with an HSQL database that is intended for evaluation purposes only. In most production environments, you will want to use a more robust database, such as MySQL.
• Sun Identity Manager: MySQL Enterprise server is a supported repository for Sun IDM. This makes great sense, when you are in a really price sensitive situations. I had blogged about this sometime back.
• Sun OpenSSO Enterprise: MySQL can be used as one of the supported authentication JDBC based user repositories .
• Java CAPS and Glassfish ESB: Of course, MySQL can be used with both Java CAPS (using eWay adapters) and Glassfish ESB, if you are building SOA based applications.

There you have it, there is a fitment with MySQL with almost all of our middle ware products !!

The following are some key things (in my personal opinion) which makes MySQL stand out, from other commercial or open source databases:

1. Everything and any server configuration settings can be changed/viewed using the my.ini (on Windows) or my.cnf (on Solaris and Linux) files. It is extremely simple. Just add it, under the appropriate headers and it will be picked up by MySQL when in starts. Plus, there are some sample, configuration files, which show sample settings for large or medium kind of databases.
2. The concept of Storage engines, and switching storage engines, having different storage engines in a single database, blows you away !!! Moving databases, renaming databases is a snap, as simple as renaming files (for Innodb) or changing directory names (for ISAM). Knowledge of different Storage engines can be a little intimidating at first, but for now, there are a few parameters like – what kind of applications will be using it? do you need transactions/ACID compliance? etc etc. Google “compare MYSQL storage engines”
3. Setting up a MySQL replication with a Master/Slave, is a breeze, and can be done in less than 10 mins for a simple setup. You will find good information in the MySQL documentation.
4. Every configuration variable setting, can be found using “MySQL>show variables like ‘%keyword%’;”
   command.

5. Doing a backup and restore of MySQL data is so simple using mysqldump.
6. Tuning of MySQL databases seemed to be straightforward, will write up more stuff, as I experiment more. But generally, there are plenty of aids, which explain where time is being spent on queries, and how we can improve them
7. Creating Triggers, Stored procedures are simple, and like other databases.

This is it for, more later …

It’s my birthday today, got a of calls/emails/twitters/sms’s (the variety of technologies seem to be increasing every year) today. Many thanks to all of you, who wished me. Its been fruitful year, both professionally and personally !! I am looking forward to this year, lots of momentous changes (hint: the Sun-Oracle thing) seem to be in store this year.

I could not resist commenting on one thing. I go to a restaurant, which is part of a chain of restaurants. On my birthday, I get no less than 10-12 emails from the same group, and the same email from them.

The email format is like this:

From: feedback@abcgroup.in
reply-to:babitaxxx@abcgroup.in
to	manixxxxx@gmail.com
date	Thu, Jun 25, 2009 at 3:17 PM
subject	Happy Birthday!
Dear Mani,
We at the ABC Group would like to wish you in advance a very Happy Birthday!
To make this day more special for you, we invite you to celebrate your Birthday at
any of the ABC outlets listed below...
Do call to make your booking with our customer relations executive on 4111xxxx/4111xxxx.
(Office hours - 10am to 5pm), who will arrange your table at any of the ABC outlets.
Thanks,
xxxx
Vice President (Operations)

My email id is the same, the names are a little different. Its sometimes, mani, manikandan, mani chandra etc etc. This is precisely, one of things, where a product like Project Mural , can be a good fit, with its Master data management and ETL capabilities. I hope to send an unsolicited solution document to them shortly