XML/XSL Tools

I’m currently investigating some open source ESB products. I’m am trying to find out whether they are mature enough for production use. Especially ServiceMix is very promising.
In order to develop a new EAI or BPM application it’s also important to have some tools at hand which make developers life a bit easier. Two or them are:

1. XML Schema generator

Trang let’s you generate XML Schemas from XML documents without installing a heavyweight development tool. Just type in:

java -jar trang.jar order.xml order_schema.xsd

2. XSLT Mapper

Jamper let’s you create XSLT-Mappings with a drag and drop GUI like in Biztalk or Aqualogic. It’s a bit rudimentary but much better than using notepad or vi.

jamper (44k image)

BizTalk Server an ESB?

During my Biztalk Server training I have been asked several times whether Biztalk is an ESB or not.
Especially in the Java technology domain ESB is becoming more and more popular. For example recently BEA released Aqualogic Service Bus.
I always said that Biztalk has all the features that you would expect from an ESB like routing and mediation.
I it’s interview Is BizTalk Server an ESB? on DNJ Online Matt Nicholson discussed this questions with Scott Woodgate from the Biztalk Server Team.
As Scott said Biztalk is not just an ESB. With it’s additional features like Business Process Management or Business Activity Monitoring, just to name a few, in combination with arbitrary service hosts it poses an ideal platform for SOA applications.

SOA Maturity Model

Quote taken from the website:

Service-oriented architecture (SOA) has emerged as the most significant shift in how business applications are designed, developed and implemented in the last 10 years, eclipsing the shift to client-server. In fact, Gartner, Inc. predicts that by 2008, “SOA will provide the basis for 80 percent of new development projects.”

While IT is quick to embrace the technical value of service-oriented design, development and implementation, IT executives face the very different challenge of accurately managing the investment in technology as it relates to business value. These IT managers and decision makers need help and guidance in communicating the business value of their SOA vision and to be able to benchmark their SOA adoption within the organization.

To address this challenge, Sonic Software and its partners AmberPoint, BearingPoint and Systinet have jointly developed A New SOA Maturity Model (SOA MM). The model is designed to show the increasingly positive impact of SOA adoption from a business benefits perspective. It provides IT decision makers with simple framework for benchmarking the strategic value of their SOA implementation, and a model for visualizing future success.

For me the SOA maturity model is very useful in order to discuss the SOA strategy for a company. The Quick Reference visualizes different maturity levels and helps the company to get an idea where they are standing.

Schizophrenic Attitude Amongst The Java Community

In the early days of Java a strong argument used by the proponents of the technology was standards compliance. Later on the community realized that the standardized technologies were not enough to meet common project requirements or the way they worked was not the most elegant.
That’s why frameworks like Struts or Spring appeared. Nowadays standards seem to be a kind of unneccessary luxury.
But they are not! Java standards allow to avoid the vendor lock-in that people were always complaining about especially in terms of Microsoft technologies. But in the context of open source this seems to be forgotten. A lot of developers a willing to use every cool non standardized open source framework that appears never asking whether it’s standard compliant or not. Examples are Struts, Spring, Beehive, etc.
I think as long as no standardized technology is available which meets certain requirements it’s perfectly fine to use non standardized technology. At least if it has a sound background for instance by a large vendor or large independent developer community.
I know there are other factors like existing codebase which might influence a technology decision.
But if one has to choose between standardized and non standardized software the choice should be clear.

What is your choice?

EJB3 or Spring?
Classic J2EE or Beehive?
JSF or Struts?

The Future of BEA Weblogic Workshop

BEA recently introduced it’s new Eclipse-based development environment after an acquisition of M7.
This immediately raises questions about the future of the BEA Weblogic Workshop 8.1 product which by now was the development environment from BEA. The BEA Workshop Studio 3.0 FAQ elucidates the subject.

Quote from the FAQ:
“There will initially be two developer tool products, the BEA Workshop Studio 3.0 and the WebLogic Workshop 8.1 IDE. BEA had previously announced that the next generation of the BEA WebLogic Workshop

New Workflow System

Microsoft announced Windows Workflow Foundation (WWF) on Sept. 14, 2005, as the programming model, engine and tools for quickly building workflow-enabled applications on Windows.
Seems to be an interesting technology, because nowadays a lot applications implement their own workflow engines. Moreover the support for human based workflow is often not very sophisticated amongst professional products like BEA Weblogic Integration or Biztalk Server.

Speaking in terms of Microsoft technology especially Biztalk Server and WWF overlap in a lot of areas.
The when to use what guidelines from Microsoft are:

Use Windows Workflow Foundation when:

An application will itself host workflows. Windows Workflow Foundation lets workflow be built into an application, allowing the workflow to be deployed and managed as a native part of the application. Because it’s focused on integrating diverse applications rather than providing a general workflow framework, BizTalk Server always runs orchestrations within the BizTalk Server process.

The business process being implemented requires human workflow. BizTalk Server addresses system workflow, and so it lacks Windows Workflow Foundation’s support for things such as state machine workflows and dynamic update. A scenario that requires both human workflow and more complex system integration services could be addressed by using Windows Workflow Foundation and BizTalk Server together, however. For example, the Office “12” support for document-centric workflows, based on Windows SharePoint Services, might be used for the human aspects of the problem, while BizTalk Server handles the system integration aspects. The two can interoperate using the BizTalk Server Adapter for SharePoint.
The workflow will execute on a client system. BizTalk Server is a server-focused product, and so it’s less well-suited to run on desktop machines.

Use BizTalk Server when:

Solving an EAI problem that requires communication with diverse applications on diverse platforms. Because of its focus on cross-platform integration, a large set of adapters is available for BizTalk Server that allows communication with a range of other software. Windows Workflow Foundation is focused solely on workflow, not EAI, and so it doesn’t provide these things.
B2B services are required. Windows Workflow Foundation doesn’t address this area, while BizTalk Server provides tools for working with trading partners, accelerators for RosettaNet, SWIFT, and other industry standards, and more.
BPM services, such as Business Activity Monitoring (BAM), are required. While the Windows Workflow Foundation tracking infrastructure can be used to create these services, BizTalk Server provides important extras, such as tools that let information workers define their own BAM views.
A complete management infrastructure and support for increased scalability are required. Unlike Windows Workflow Foundation, BizTalk Server includes a full set of tools for administering and scaling a production environment.

So in essence WWF is for Human Based Workflow, whereas BTS is for Enterprise Integration.
Seems to be a good idea not to use BTS Human Workflow Services but to wait for WWF until end of 2006.