Service Component Architecture – State of the Union
Clemens Utschig-Utschig presents the Service Component Architecture (SCA), the component model used, best development practices, and the current status of the specification.
Clemens Utschig-Utschig presents the Service Component Architecture (SCA), the component model used, best development practices, and the current status of the specification.
Ross Mason, founder of MuleSource expressed his frustration with OSGi: "OSGi is a great specification for middleware vendors, but a terrible specification for the end user." He argues that OSGi just isn’t ready for the developer yet as it is too difficult to completely make it invisible to a developer.
Recently the Deltacloud and libCloud projects were accepted into Apache incubator status. Now it looks like Nuvem, another Cloud-related project may be coming soon. Although there may be overlaps with these other projects, it seems that Nuvem may be taking a SOA-based approach with dependency on SCA.
WebSphere Application Server V7 Feature Pack for OSGi Applications and Java Persistence API 2.0 offers a standards-based implementation of OSGi Blueprint Container specification and JPA 2.0. It also provides an optional feature to deploy and manage applications as versioned OSGi bundles. IBM recently announced the GA release of the feature pack which is based on Apache projects Aries and OpenJPA.
A new version of the open source SCA implementation – Fabric3 - introduces many new features including improved clustering, deep integration with WebLogic application server, and improved performance support. InfoQ has conducted an interview with Metaform Systems founder and SCA contributor Jim Marino.

A new "Tuscany SCA in Action" book by Simon Laws, Mark Combellack, Raymond Feng, Haleh Mahbod and Simon Nash provides a simple step-by-step guide on how to develop applications leveraging SCA and Apache Tuscany.

A new book by Mauricio "Salaboy" Salatino, the jBPM Developer Guide, provides a detailed jBPM programming guide for Java developers with several real-life examples. InfoQ spoke with Salatino to learn the motivations behind the book and learn from his experience both using and writing about the jBPM Business Process Management suite.

A new book by David Linthicum, Cloud Computing and SOA Convergence in Your Enterprise: A Step-by-Step Guide, describes how to get the enterprise ready for cloud computing by carefully modeling enterprise data, information services and processes in a service oriented manner to make the transition to providing and consuming cloud services easier.

IBM Chief SOA architect Rob High introduces Service Component Architecture (SCA) and Service Data Objects (SDO) as the foundation for a SOA programming model. Topics covered include a definition of SOA, a look at its principles and properties, an introduction to SCA and SDO and an outlook to the connection of SOA and Web 2.0.

Composite Software offers a new level of granularity when compared to SaaS (Software as a Service). Composite Software is about enabling "right-sourcing", i.e. move (or keep) arbitrary small or large elements of functionality wherever it is the most cost effective to operate them, not just entire systems. Economically, "right-sourcing" is far more efficient than "outsourcing" and SaaS. The goal of this book is start by understanding today’s software construction processes and technologies and explore why and how it should be evolved to support core composition mechanisms.