The microService Architecture (mSA) Backplane is an OSGi-based infrastructure that will be the basis for many future software products from BEA. This project has been in development for about a year, and currently consists of about 100 different OSGi bundles that encompass functions such as logging, thread management, HTTP servlets, web services, and transaction management.

In the course of our work, we have learned a great deal about the process of breaking down existing, production-quality software into individual modules, and we have learned how to effectively use some of the best features of OSGi, such as the class loading infrastructure and the service registry. We also continue to be challenged by other aspects of OSGi, such as the security infrastructure and the mechanisms for starting and launching bundles.

In this talk, we will describe the mSA Backplane, and we will concentrate on the lessons we have learned about OSGi in the process of building it. We will assume that attendees are familiar with fundamental OSGi concepts.

Outline

• Overview of the mSA Backplane
• OSGi Backplane Components
• Bundles in the Backplane
• How we use OSGi
• Experiences with Modularization
• OSGi: The Good
• OSGi: The Bad
• OSGi: The Ugly

Gregory Brail works on the architecture of the mSA Backplane, the OSGi-based technology that will underly many BEA software products. Previously, he co-led the architecture of the JMS component in WebLogic Server 9.0. In the past, he has held various development and field positions at TransactPlus, IBM, Transarc, and Citibank.