WSO2 WSAS 3.0 - Coming Soon!

Expect the WSAS 3.0 release in mid December this year. The most significant feature in this release is going to be the fully componentized architecture. This new release is going to be based on WSO2 Carbon, which is the base platform for all future Java products from WSO2. WSO2 Carbon is based on OSGi. All the major features have been bundled into Carbon components which are in fact OSGi bundles. All major middleware vendors, including WSO2, have recognized the power of OSGi and are migrating their products towards an OSGi based architecture.

What is the value & benefit this is going to give the WSAS users & in general the Carbon users? Well, there are several.

Pick & Choose
1. Ability to select only the bare minimum functionality needed. You can simply remove unnecessary functionality
2. Ability to extend the server's functionality. For example, if you have a running WSAS instance, and need some service mediation capabilities enabled or BPEL capabilities, you simply need to drop in the relevant Carbon components into the Carbon plugins directory. You do not need to restart the server.

In short, you can mix & match whatever the functionality you desire.

Improved Availability - Server Restarting Minimized
Let's say you have enabled data services support through the Carbon Data Services component, and that your server is running in a production system. You need to deploy a data service which talks to a MS-SQL Server RDBMS, but have not included the JDBC driver in the WSAS instances classpath. In a traditional deployment, you'd need to drop the JDBC driver jar file into the classpath & restart the server, thereby impacting the availability. With the Carbon based approach, restarting is no longer required. Carbon takes care of wiring in the new MS-SQL Server JDBC driver.

Extend the server's functionality through custom components
The users can write their own components & extend the functionality of a Carbon based server.

What are the benefits this approach gives to the middleware vendor? The greatest benefit is having the ability to go from concept to solution in the minimum possible time period. For example, the BPEL Carbon was developed within 3 weeks! We did not have to rethink how to secure the BPEL processes & provide other enterprise features. These were already available as Carbon components. This benefit is also directly passed on to the Carbon user since they can expect to get new functionality within the shortest possible period.