Symmetric Service Oriented Programming

BJ Hargrave (IBM)

Supporting Technology - OSGi DevCon · Long - main stage
Wednesday, 16:30, 50 minutes | Theater

BJ Hargrave

Most people who know OSGi are familiar with it as a modularity solution. Surprisingly, if you look at the major app servers using OSGi they all but ignore the Service Layer. However the OSGi Service Layer is a crucial part of writing well decoupled software. Services simplify object oriented programing because they significantly reduce the coupling in a system. However, services are usually understood as being heavy-weight communications-based services as in SOA. Ten years ago, OSGi introduced an in-VM service oriented programming model that provides most of the SOA benefits at virtually zero runtime cost. OSGi combines strong modularity with well-defined, dynamic services. In R4.2, with the addition of Service Hooks, the OSGi service model will become symmetric. It will then support discovery of clients waiting for services as well as providers registering services. This dynamic model works surprising well in a large number of real world use cases. This session will explore why a symmetric service oriented programming model is important and can significantly reduce the complexity of developing large complex systems.

BJ Hargrave is a Senior Technical Staff Member at IBM Lotus with over 20 years of experience as an IBM software architect and developer. His focus is small computer operating systems (kernels, file systems, development tools, application binary interface specifications) and Java technology. He holds multiple patents for JVM performance improvements and is the IBM expert and lead architect for OSGi technologies. BJ holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a Master of Science in Computer Science from the University of Miami. BJ has been a leader in the development of the OSGi technology since its inception and was named an OSGi Fellow in 2002 for his technical contributions and leadership in the OSGi Alliance. He is currently CTO of the OSGi Alliance and chair of the OSGi Core Platform Expert Group. BJ is also a committer on the Eclipse Equinox project.