RFC66 web modules in Spring dm

[asapanel]

Hi,

I'm working on a project with Spring dm, Spring MVC, Hibernate, ... Our main constraint is to remain platform independent and we used to test our application against Equinox, Felix, and Knopflerfish as part of our continuous integration process.

I have recently read a lot about SpringSource Slices which is really an interesting project that addresses concrete business needs and I was wondering if there was any plan to integrate Web module with Springdm without having to use dm server and remain platform independent ?

Thanks for your answer

Alex

[Costin Leau]

If by "web module" you mean RFC-66 then yes. RFC-66 implies a stand-alone, portable service that can be used across the various OSGi frameworks.

[asapanel]

Thank you for your answer Costin.
Thanks to your answer and what i've read since yesterday, it becomes clearer now.
I've found one thread very interesting on google groups : http://groups.google.com/group/sprin...36c09ac27570d4
and what I understand is that RFC-66 has not been yet implemented in Springdm, maybe in the next release ?

Actually my needs are the following :
I have one 'core-web' bundle (Spring MVC) for my main web application which contains TLDs, main JSPs, main CSSs, main Spring controllers, ... and I would like to be able to install and start a 'moduleA-web' bundle (Spring MVC) containing moduleA web
logic (JSP, CSS, Spring controllers, ...).
The 'moduleA-web' bundle should be able to dynamically add some content to my main web application that is to say that the web logic of the 'moduleA-web' bundle should be accessible through my main web application as long as 'moduleA-web' is started.

If I understand well, the "RFC-66 web container" will be able to handle this. Am I wrong ?

[Costin Leau]

I'll just talk about the spring dm bit as I'm not that familiar with rfc-66 capabilities. Spring DM will not implement rfc-66 since there is another on-going effort on implementing this service from SpringSource. In fact, SpringSource will be delivering the rfc-66 reference implementation.
Thus there is no point in delivering that as part of Spring DM - at most, in Spring DM we'll be integrating (if there is a need) with RFC-66 but in most cases, things should work automatically out of the box (there won't be any need for an integration).

Hope this helps,

[asapanel]

It helps ! Thanks
But is there a way/an existing solution to implement my needs (one 'core-web' bundle and 'moduleA-web' bundle) ?

[Costin Leau]

You could take a look at the current RFC-66 snapshot (the repo is mentioned in the RFC-66 entries on the SpringSource.org blog). Additionally you could start working on your own solution or customizing the existing ones (including Spring DM support). There should be other projects out there that address this problem though I'm not familiar with the level of support that they offer nor with your use case for that matter.
My advice would be to work on a prototype based on RFC-66 since it's a standard (that is, portable).

[asapanel]

Thank you Costin, I will work on that. Moreover, I've found some interesting work regarding my needs : Springsource Slice and Dysoweb and I will try to implement my own solution based on these inputs.

[Costin Leau]

It would great if you would document your findings somewhere so others can pick it up. Cheers!