What's New in Java EE 6?

Java Platform, Enterprise Edition 6 (Java EE 6) is almost here - slated for release in Q4 2009.

Java EE 6 includes, besides improvements over Java EE 5, the following key themes:

• Profiles (Targetted bundles of technology)
• Pruning (Making some technologies optional (Current list includes: JAX-RPC, EJB 2.x Entity Beans, JAXR, JSR-85)
• Extensibility (Embrace open source libraries & frameworks)
• Ease of development
• EJB Lite
• RESTful Services
• Dependency Injection (at long last?!)
  

And, to summarize the new features, these include:

• EJB 3.1 (JSR 318) [Ease of use, No-interface view, Portable JNDI, Singleton Beans, Timer Service and more]
• JPA 2.0 (JSR 317)
• Servlet 3.0 (JSR 315) [Annotations, Optional web.xml/fragments, better defaults, Asynchronous Processing]
• JSF 2.0 (JSR 314) [AJAX, Simplified component creation]
• JAX-RS 1.1 (JSR 311) [RESTful services]
• Connector Arch 1.6
• Web Beans 1.0 (JSR 299)
• Bean Validation 1.0 (JSR 303)

And, corresponding to the availability of Java EE 6, GlassFish v3 is also coming along by around the same timeframe.

You can get the full details from the following presentation by Sun Microsystems:

Sun Java EE 6 Overview

Windows 7 is here!

Microsoft finally launched Windows 7, its latest OS - after an extended beta, on 22 Oct, 09.

Windows7 is intended to undo many of the shortcomings that failed for Microsoft Vista, and promises a load of features.

Click here to enlarge the tag cloud

Some of the prominently talked about features include:

• Desktop Enhancements and packed with options for customization
• Live Taskbar Previews - A nifty feature on the newly designed TaskBar
• Aero Peek and AeroShake - A new way to "minimize" windows on the desktop
• An all new Explorer, supported by the new Windows Search, Libraries, and HomeGroups
  
• Parental Controls and Improved Security/User Access Controls (UAC)
• XP Compatibility Mode
  

There are a whole lot of features - and you can view the quick demos (7 second demos, as they are called) and the full listing here.

If you want a quick peek into what some of these features are all about, here's a brief video (still based on the Beta, but i'll post another if I find a more recent one):




When you think about it, a lot of these features are pretty neat and are geared to enriching the overall experience and productivity for the user. You wonder, how far things have come from what really an OS should really offer. And, with the present trend of rich experiences, faster online access and al things "Web 2.0", Windows7 seems to be offering just that - performance, security and experience.

Surely it's easy for users and critics to comment on a lot of the things that may not necessarily be up to one's expectations. But, coming from a technical perspective, its hard, if not, impossible, to imagine, design, architect and then implement something that's suited for such a large and varied user base. At a risk of sounding like being too 'pro-Microsoft/Windows', it's worth acknowledging that Windows sure has come a long way from the days of Windows 3.1.

Will there be a newer, better Windows down the line, or will the Mac & Linux (or is it Chrome OS?) genres ultimately rule? The whole world will watch the release of Windows7 - and while competitors will hope otherwise, it's probably wise to hope and expect that Windows 7 should fare MUCH better than its predecessor, Vista.

Cisco's Cloud Strategy

Padmasree Warrior, CTO, Cisco Systems, in this presentation (from slideshare.net) describes the 'Future of Government IT' and how Cisco, with it's cloud strategy, is building the strategy for the same.

Padmasree Warrior - Enterprise Architecture 2009

View more documents from George Gonzalez.

Force.com - Platform as a Service

Here's an amazing video from SalesForce.com, the current leader in SaaS, that elicits the constant and amazing changes that we have witnessed through the past four or five decades, and how force.com has again changed things!




On a slightly personal note, it's also exciting to have witnessed - and be a witness - to some of these changes, and how they are influencing our lives. What's even more exciting for me is to be able to work in this field, and create such solutions and architectures as well!

The Web 2.0 Bookstore

Web 2.0 - A Tagged View

Tags are an informal and largely ad-hoc categorization of content. Tags have become popular with the advent of Web 2.0 sites and are a simple and effective means to facilitate searching.

In an earlier post, we explained the core principles of what makes up Web 2.0. In a more conventional sense, we could write pages after pages to describe these. While in a different conext, that is still going to be needed, here's what Web 2.0 entails, depicted as a tag cloud.

(Based on the original source for this tag cloud, by Markus Angermeier)

What is Web 2.0?

Snazzy logos, glassy icons, creative sites with equally creative names, amazing flexibility, rich web experience, ... It's all over the Internet now - and everyone wants more!

This is the power that Web 2.0 has brought to unleash the "Power of You".


'Web 2.0' sounds new - and in many ways, is the next version of the web. In a sense, it is a next, but is hardly a [higher] version in the conventional sense of things. Rather, it is more about the next generation of the Web (or Internet), and it manifests itself in different ways.

Web 2.0 is undoubtedly an exciting trend - and has since, given rise to a plethora of "2.0" terms! - that is slated to change the way businesses and the folks who belong to those businesses, no matter who or where they are, perform their routine set of tasks.

The term "Web 2.0" is widely accepted to be associated with Tim O'Reilly, during the O'Reilly Media Web 2.0 conference in 2004. To quote a more formal definition, according to O'Reilly and Battelle:

"[Web 2.0 is] an architecture of participation where users can contribute website content to create network effects. Web 2.0 technologies tend to foster innovation in the assembly of systems and sites composed by pulling together features from distributed, independent developers (a kind of "open source" development and an end to the software adoption cycle, the so-called "perpetual beta"). Web 2.0 technology encourages lightweight business models enabled by syndication of content and of service and by ease of picking up early adopters..."

By this time, it's probably unlikely that you have not heard or come across at least one of the following:
and are already socializing with your buddies on Facebook, using Wikipedia as a reference (encyclopedia), tagging stuff on del.icio.us, watching videos that users upload onto YouTube, and of course, writing, reading or commenting on someone's blog somewhere.

All this is what's "Web 2.0" is made of (aka, the core principles of Web 2.0):

• Web as a Platform
• User-generated content
• Content syndication
• Social Networking / Tagging
• Collective Intelligence
• Rich User Experience / Collaboration
• New Business Models / The Long Tail

Web 2.0 is an amazing phenomenon - and is here to stay. Surely, I won't be able to do justice to this business revolution in a single post, and I sure am glad that I am fortunate to experience it in this age.

Keep watching this space!

What is Cloud Computing?

Cloud computing, which is the new buzz these days, and has also figured in Gartner's annual listing of technologies to watch for, is seeing a lot of hype of late. I don't exactly recall when I began using the term myself - but, it was probably when the topic started popping up in a number of blogs and forums and seminars and conversations.

I'll admit, I haven't researched the subject enough, to put a finger on when (or what exactly led to) the birth of this concept took place (you know, like how "Web 2.0" is attributed to Tim O'Reilly's talk at a conference). However, as with most technologies - and keeping in view Gartner's Hype Cycle paradigm - these things tend to seemingly happen right before one's own eyes, before you know it.

For example, Google's Gmail which began offering 'unlimited' storage. Or, to counter this, most of the popular email service providers bumped up their account quotas pretty much simultaneously. Or, Jonathan Schwartz's dream of 'The Network is the Computer' (2006). Looking back, I think this could not have been possible, without, what we now recognize as forms of cloud computing. Sure, now there are other examples.

Put very simply, Cloud Computing:

• Is a style of computing (much like how SOA is a style of architecture)
• Inherently offers dynamic scalability (as in 'on-demand')
• Is offered as a service (over the Internet, that is)

Based on these fundamental characteristics, cloud computing typically comprises three distinct 'types' or 'models':

• Infrastructure (or Hardware) as a Service (Iaas or HaaS)
• Platform as a Service (PaaS), and
  
• Software as a Service (SaaS)

I'll elaborate on each of these areas further in subsequent posts, but the key concept behind this seemingly powerful concept - which is beginning to see the light of day - is that it based on the fact, that computing power like your regular electric power, is as good as a utility. That is, both hardware and software can be thought of as 'utility', that are consumed when you need them. And, hence, the concept of on-demand or pay-as-you-use services.

Cloud Computing is here to stay - and Web 2.0 is closely associated to it - and while the current global economic downturn may have slowed things down a bit, it offers the promise of reducing IT expenditure (capex) for agile businesses.

Technology

Well, that's what this blog is for!

And, that's what we'll cover here. You'll find information on a number of technologies here, we promise!

News

Technology and the technical world is a dynamic universe. New technologies coming up, innovations, standardizations, new business models, mergers & acquisitions, ...

There's a whole lot of news on a daily basis.

Magazines

Just like books, its a pleasure to find, browse or read magazines. Unlike books, magazines are more succinct and help to create awareness, educate and feed the information in brief, to be pursued further, if needed.

Once again, we'll cover (technical) magazines and their articles, here.

Books

We live in an increasingly digitized world, and there's no dirth of information that can be found online. However, books are unlikely to fade away, and it's always interesting and exciting to find a good book.

We'll cover technical (kind of) books here, primarily.

Design Patterns

Design Patterns - in a slightly technical sense - are design solutions to (commonly) occurring problems. Depending on the context of the problem, and therefore the corresponding solution, there can be a whole set of patterns that may apply.

As a solution (or system) designer/architect, it is important to identify the right pattern in the given context.

Here, we'll include posts on design patterns.

Design

Designing IT solutions is no easy thing - and the fact that there's an entire industry that caters to it, must imply that there is something to it. Of course, one can argue about these things. But, we'd rather provide information on how real-world, IT solutions are designed. We'll get to know about design principles, best practices and much more.

Web 2.0

Web 2.0 is all around us now. But, there's a whole lot that's going on - and it's amazing, what the technology is enabling in this space. Find out all about Web 2.0 architectures here.

Cloud Computing

Get to know what's the latest buzz in the world of Cloud Computing.

Service-Oriented Architecture

Get to know what's happening in the space of SOA: Service-Oriented Architecture.

Architecture

Get to know about architecture - concepts, solutions, applications and practices.

Articles

This category of posts is related to articles relating to anything that is interesting, informational or educational.

Library

This category will contain posts about -

• Books
• Whitepapers
• Case Studies
• Reviews

that are interesting...

About: The Technical Web

Technology - in the Information Technology sense - is exciting, to say the least. Things happen, literally, every instant. And, many have the potential to change our lives, we cannot imagine.

Find interesting articles and posts about design, architecture, SOA, Cloud Computing, and how Web 2.0 is changing the world... This is one place where the technically inclined will find something of interest, to keep up with all that's happening around.

Go on. Explore and apply. Technology is our passion!