On Mon, Oct 19, 2009 at 9:15 AM, Guillaume Nodet <[email protected]> wrote:
> 2009/10/18 Peter Gardfjäll <[email protected]>: > > Hi, > > > > at the company I work, I am currently involved in a project where we are > > using a home-grown OSGi-based server on which we deploy our applications. > > In fact, it has quite a lot in common with Apache Karaf, which on a quick > > inspection, looks like a good deployment alternative considering what we > > already have. > > (Being able to use a stable, community-driven alternative seems more > > appealing than having to maintain our own framework). > > However, before starting to migrate our applications I would like to ask > a > > few general questions about the framework. > > Any input would be greatly appreciated. > > > > (1) From what I understand, "features" are the main deployment unit for > > installing multi-bundle applications onto the Karaf runtime. > > Although it appears to be a highly flexible format, it introduces a > > level of indirection with the descriptor only containing references to > the > > actual deployment artifacts. > > Do you have any plans of introducing other deployment formats, for > > instance a more "direct" format that contains the actual artifacts to be > > deployed? > > (I am thinking of something along the lines of the PAR format in the > > spring dm server.) > > For instance, in our home-grown server we have a zip deployer that > > expects a zip file containing the application bundles to be deployed. > > Yeah, that would make sense. We haven't discussed that yet, but maybe > a zip file containing the feature descriptor in some META-INF or > OSGI-INF folder along with an inlined repository (maybe using the > maven layout) sounds like a good idea to distribute a stand alone > application. > > > (2) How extensible is the deployment architecture of Karaf? > > Does it allow custom deployers to be hooked in to support other > > deployment formats? > > Would it be a complex task to introduce additional deployers? > > We already have custom deployers. This has not been really documented > yet, but we use those for deploying blueprint applications, spring > applications and features. We plan on adding WAR deployment support > (currently provided by ServiceMix along with a JBI deployer). > You'll see a custom deployer at the following location: > https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/felix/trunk/karaf/deployer/blueprint/ > You basically need to register a service in the OSGi registry such as > the following one: > > https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/felix/trunk/karaf/deployer/blueprint/src/main/java/org/apache/felix/karaf/deployer/blueprint/BlueprintDeploymentListener.java > > > (3) Are there any plans on providing some sort of in-container testing > > framework (or maybe one already exists)? > > I'm imagining some kind of simple testing infrastructure, such as an > > (abstract?) base TestCase class that launches a bare-bones Karaf runtime > > with the possibility for concrete TestCases to add > > features/bundles/configurations? I believe that such an integration test > > framework could be really useful. > > We currently use pax-exam and we may want to provide a bit more around > that. > Looks like a good idea, as for example we see exam more as a platform than an everyones solution. See, there has been a long time reequest for some candy on top of interacting with the raw BundleContext. If not necessarily Apache ( politics) but Karaf seems to be a good provider for such an extension. If there's more interest, feel free to share your thoughts. As of myself, i have a big pile of ideas one could build around, it just needs interest by the community. ;) > > (4) What is the preferred way of writing and launching applications for > the > > Karaf platform? > > (I see that the user's guide contains a placeholder chapter for this > > type of information but I was hoping that someone could give a brief > > summary!) > > The concept of features would be the best we have for that I think. > IIRC, the user's guide page you're referring to was supposed to > explain how to create a custom feature descriptor and use it to deploy > an application. > > > (5) Are there any plans around Karaf development tools, such as Eclipse > > plug-ins similar to those of spring dm server, that would allow a Karaf > > server runtime to be defined and workspace bundles to be hot deployed? > > There's one Eclipse plugin you may want to try: > http://fusesource.com/forge/projects/EIK > > > Okay, that's all for now. > > > > best regards, Peter > > > > > > -- > Cheers, > Guillaume Nodet > ------------------------ > Blog: http://gnodet.blogspot.com/ > ------------------------ > Open Source SOA > http://fusesource.com > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] > For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected] > > -- Toni Menzel Independent Software Developer Professional Profile: http://okidokiteam.com [email protected] http://www.ops4j.org - New Energy for OSS Communities - Open Participation Software.
