Adopting OSGi in Java Application Frameworks - source enthusiasm

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Adopting OSGi in Java Application Frameworks

Adopting OSGi in Java Application Frameworks: A Case Study — Migration of software systems to the OSGi platform is gaining momentum with wide acceptance of the OSGi technology as the dynamic module system for Java. This transition is of special interest when it comes to popular Java application frameworks, which attract a growing number of Java developers around the world. Although the technical merits of the OSGi platform are broadly recognized, the migration of existing application frameworks is slow due to significant redesign and re-implementation efforts involved. We present an alternative lightweight approach - an adaptation of existing Java application framework for component based OSGi environment. Adaptation, as opposed to migration, eliminates the necessity of modularizing or redesigning the existing framework. This is particularly important when existing software platform and the associated programming model is mature and has already penetrated into the market place. As a general adaptation solution we introduce a thin layer between the OSGi Service Platform and the existing framework. Furthermore, we present the case study of an OSGi adaptation of a popular open source Java platform developed by IBM Research for integration of software analytics. Our results demonstrate that the adaptation approach is not limited to the presented case, but is broadly applicable to a variety of Java application frameworks.

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