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Spring Dynamic Modules Continuing To Improve

by Craig Wickesser on Jul 19, 2008 |

On the Spring website you'll find that Spring Dynamic Modules is defined as a project that,

...makes it easy to build Spring applications that run in an OSGi framework. A Spring application written in this way provides better separation of modules, the ability to dynamically add, remove, and update modules in a running system, the ability to deploy multiple versions of a module simultaneously (and have clients automatically bind to the appropriate one), and a dynamic service model.

Ryan Slobojan, InfoQ editor, originally wrote about Spring Dynamic Modules version 1.0 back in January of this year. Below is a list of the new features found in version 1.1.0 from the press release.

Web Support (Servlet, JSP, Taglibs) for OSGi applications
Spring-MVC integration
Classpath scanning
Customization hooks for Spring-DM extender and web extender
Event notifications for OSGi service importers and application contexts
Refined OSGi proxy infrastructure
'greedy-proxy' functionality for OSGi collections
Integration with SpringSource Bundle Repository
Support for custom locations for Spring powered bundles
Pluggable mechanism for determining service dependencies
Access to native OSGi ServiceReference for OSGi importers
New web sample

One of the biggest features added was for Web support which integrates with web containers such as Tomcat and Jetty. The website states that it allows for,

the transparent support for web applications on OSGi platforms...Spring-DM allows WARs using Servlet, JSP and taglib technologies to be used with little or no effort at all.

Another thing included in the latest release is a new web sample which aims to provide an understanding of how the new web support works. Although Spring Dynamic Modules is fairly new it is improving, with features and bug fixes, and is backed by a very mature development staff and company.

To learn more about Spring Dynamic Modules 1.1.0 take a look at the Reference Guide.