But I digress... Rick Palkovic's blog

TS-1076 Practical SOA Business Integration Using OpenESB: A Distributed Java™ Business Integration Composed Services Application How-to and Demo
Presenters: Ron Ten-Hove, Michael Wright, and Keith Babo (standing in for Mark White)

I'm pleased to see Keith at this presentation. He's a contributor to the soon-to-be-published article "Implementing Service-Oriented Architectures (SOA) with Java EE 5" (see the review of TS-3175 below). He's a member of the JSR 208 Expert Group and contributes to the 208 RI and to Project OpenESB.

However, I'm not pleased to learn that Mark White, the originally scheduled presenter, has been hurt in a motorcycle accident. Heal quickly, Mark.

Waiting for the presentation to begin, we are assaulted by rap music with the refrain "I'm an engineer, respect my mind!" Maybe it just feels like I'm being assaulted because I'm sitting next to the loudspeaker. I suppose people actually program with this stuff playing in the background, but I'm feeling my IQ drop with each machine-gun verse.

Mercifully, Ron opens the session. He presents an overview of SOA concepts. Not having his charts and diagrams on hand, I won't try to summarize.

Next, Keith introduces Project OpenESB. Although Project OpenESB is an implementation of JSR 208, it addresses some shortcomings of the specification by introducing a Java Open Enterprise Service Bus built with JBI technology. In essence, OpenESB enables a set of distributed JBI instances to communicate as a single logical entity that can be managed through a central interface.

Now, Mike presents the demo. The demo is built with open source tools, including the web server GlassFish, the NetBeans™ IDE, and Project OpenESB.

Mike shows how to build OpenESB from scratch. Next, he shows how to build custom components. These plug-in components are useful in many different application areas. They can be used in other projects and are a way to build value over time. Most important, they can be shared with the Project OpenESB community.

To avoid the uncertainties Gopalan encountered in TS-3175, Mike and company have canned parts of the demo in video rather than doing it all live. This is certainly a safer approach, but the audience, robbed of the sense of high-wire drama, begins to grow restless.

Just in time, Mike fires up the the composite application resulting from an earlier build and deployment. After some fancy footwork, the demo works nearly as expected. Pretty good, considering that the OpenESB bits are only two days old.

In his closing remarks, Ron urges us to learn more about composite applications are and to contribute to OpenESB.

Here are my takeaways from the session:

• The big win in a SOA composite application is flexibility. During the demo, Mike replaced a local rules engine service provider with a remote SOAP implementation. The composite application clicked right along, obtaining its services from the remote provider.
• The organization of an SOA composite application makes it easy to reuse services.
• An SOA composite application is easily scalable.
• The Enterprise Service Bus (OpenESB) based on JBI fits in well with the world of Java Programming. For example, inside GlassFish is a service engine that allows Enterprise JavaBeans to be services within the JBI system.

As with most of the sessions presented at JavaOne, slides and sample code will be available for download. The content of this presentation will be made available on the Project OpenESB site as well. It's well worth a look.

Also, much of this material will be covered in "Implementing Service-Oriented Architectures (SOA) with Java EE 5," due for publication on May 25. I'll give you a heads-up when it actually hits the cybersphere and tell you where to find it.