WSO2 Mashup Server 1.0 Released

The WSO2 Mashup Server is a powerful yet simple and quick way to tailor Web-based information to the personal needs of individuals and organizations.

It has been released under the Apache Software License 2.0.

This release can be downloaded from http://wso2.org/projects/mashup

WSO2 Mashup Server 1.0 - Release Note - 28th January 2008

"Create, deploy, and consume Web services Mashups in the simplest fashion"

The WSO2 Mashup Server is a powerful yet simple and quick way to tailor Web-based information to the personal needs of individuals and organizations.

It is a platform for acquiring data from a variety of sources including Web Services, HTML pages and feeds, and process and combine it with other data using JavaScript with E4X XML extensions. The result is then exposed as a new Web service with rich metadata and artifacts to simplify the creation of rich user interfaces.

The WSO2 Mashup Server will form the backbone of a become an ecosystem of community-developed services that will broaden the palette of capabilities for mashups and distributed applications.

WSO2 Mashup Server is released under the Apache License v2.0

Check out the project home page at http://www.wso2.org/projects/mashup for additional information.


Features List

* Hosting of mashup services written using JavaScript with E4X XML extension
- Simple file based deployment model
* JavaScript annotations to configure the deployed services
* Auto generation of metadata and runtime resources for the deployed mashups
- JavaScript stubs that simplify client access to the mashup service
- TryIt functionality to invoke the mashup service through a web browser
- WSDL 1.1/WSDL 2.0/XSD documents to describe the mashup service
- API documentation
* Ability to bundle a custom user interface for the mashups
* Many useful Javascript Host objects that can be used when writing mashups
- WSRequest: invoke Web services from the mashup services
- File: File storage/manipulation functionality
- System: Set of system specific utility functions
- Session: Ability to share objects across different service invocations
- Scraper: Extract data from HTML pages and present in XML format
- APPClient: Atom Publishing Protocol client to retrieve/publish Atom feeds with APP servers
- Feed: A generic set of host objects to transparently read and create Atom and RSS feeds
* Support for recurring and longer-running tasks
* Management console to easily manage the mashups
* Simple sharing of deployed mashups with other WSO2 Mashup Servers
Mashup sharing community portal (http://mooshup.com) to share and host your mashups

New In This Release

* Email Host object
* IM Host object
* Revamped management interface based on WSO2 Registry
- Web 2.0 look and feel
- Improved multi-user and community support
- Improved user management support for administrators
- Email-verified self-registration
- Comments, tags, ratings
- Sophisticated search capabilities to locate and group mashups
- RSS and Atom feeds for any query
- Recent activity queries
* Improved tooling
- Scraper assistant
- JavaScript Stub Genarator
* Improved REST support via httpMethod and httpLocation annotations
* Infocard login support
* Improved sharing and downloading of mashups based on user accounts
* Special _private folder to store private data for each mashup
* Windows installer and management tray icon.

Known Issues

* Management Console was tested only on IE 6/7 & Firefox 1.5/2.0.
* Inter-service dependencies using the dynamically generated stubs may give deployment time errors. Workaround would be to save a local copy of the stub in to the dependent service.
* JSON support lacks try-it support
* Mashup editor will convert < and > characters to <> while saving the code in the server. This might result in malformed xml. Using these special characters with caution is adviced.
Refer http://wso2.org/jira/browse/MASHUP-607.

Future Directions

* Improved tooling support.
* An expanded toolkit of generic building-block services.
* Improved access control.
* Samples and tools to use mashups in even more places like portals and widgets.
* Lots more cool stuff.

Reporting Problems

Issues can be reported using the public JIRA available at
https://wso2.org/jira/browse/MASHUP

Contact us

WSO2 Mashup Server developers can be contacted via mailing lists:
For Users: mashup-user@wso2.org
For Developers: mashup-dev@wso2.org
For details on subscriptions: http://www.wso2.org/projects/mashup#mail

Questions can also be raised in this forum: http://www.wso2.org/forum/226

Training

WSO2 Inc. offers a variety of professional Training Programs, including training on general Web services as well as WSO2 Mashup Server, WSO2 WSAS, WSO2 ESB, Apache Axis2, Data Services and a number of other products.

For additional support information please refer to
http://wso2.com/training/course-catalog/

Support

WSO2 Inc. offers a variety of development and production support programs, ranging from Web-based support up through normal business hours, to premium 24x7 phone support. For additional support information

please refer to http://wso2.com/support/

Enjoy the Mashup Server!

- WSO2 Mashup Server Team

Axis2 based Web services Application Server - WSO2 WSAS 2.2 Released

We are happy to announce the release of WSO2 Web Services Application Server (WSAS) 2.2, the enterprise ready Web services engine powered by Apache Axis2. WSAS is a Java runtime for hosting services & runs standalone or in conjunction with Apache Tomcat, IBM WebSphere, BEA
WebLogic, JBossAS and any other servlet container. WSAS makes it easy to develop, deploy and manage services using a graphical management console.

WSAS is an open source product released under the Apache Software License 2.0.


The core features of WSAS include;

• Axis1 backward compatibility - Expose legacy Axis 1.x Web services as Axis2 Web services & engage Axis2's WS-* protocols such as WS-Security & WSRM in front of legacy services.
• Simple approach to provide WS-SecurityPolicy based Rampart configuration with graphical tools, using a set of most common security scenarios.
• Data services support - Easily expose data stored in an enterprise data source via a Web service API
• EJB service provider support - Easily expose EJBs as Web services using a GUI Wizard
• WSAS IDE - Eclipse IDE plugin supporting code-first and contract-first development
• Clustering support - for High Availability & High Scalability
• Full support for WS-Security, WS-Trust, WS-Policy and WS-Secure Conversation and XKMS
• JMX & Web interface based monitoring and management
• WS-* & REST support
• GUIs for popular Axis2 tools such as wsdl2java[1] & java2wsdl[2]
• GUI Tool for trying out any Web service[3]
• GUI tool for converting WSDL 1.1 to 2.0 documents[4]
• GUI based services.xml[5] & module.xml[6] validator

New Features In This Release

• Improved Data Services support including New & improved UI, and database connection pooling
• WS-Security 1.1 support
• Improved clustering support
• Improved JSR-181 & JAXWS support
• JMX based monitoring
• Graceful shutdown & restart of the server
• Serve all pending requests before shutting down or restarting the server
• Improvements to the Management Console
• Various bug fixes to Apache Axis2, Apache Rampart & WSAS

Demo
You can try a live version of WSAS 2.2 (no download needed) here:
http://tools.wso2.org/tryit/wsas/java/2.2
(Any services you deploy will be removed within an hour.)

For more details, see the WSAS release note.
http://wso2.org/project/wsas/java/2.2/docs/release_notes.html

Data Services - Bringing Enterprise Data to Web

• Service enable data locked in enterprise data sources in no time
• Zero code. Simple descriptor file describes the data to service mapping
• Controlled access to your data
• Customizable XML output
• Benefit from REST & WS-* support
• Built-in Connection pooling support
• Supports exposing Stored procedures & functions
• Built-in caching
• Throttling - to ensure your database is never overloaded
• Easy configuration via graphical console
• Test your services via Try-it tool

Useful Links
Download WSAS from here:
http://dist.wso2.org/products/wsas/java/2.2/

How to do various stuff with WSAS :
http://www.wso2.org/library/2707


Contribute to WSAS
SVN: http://wso2.org/repos/wso2/trunk/wsas/java
JIRA: https://wso2.org/jira/browse/WSAS
User list: wsas-java-user@wso2.org
Dev list: wsas-java-dev@wso2.org
Forum: http://wso2.org/forum/184

Training
WSO2 Inc. offers a variety of professional Training Programs, including
training on general Web services as well as WSO2 WSAS, Apache Axis2, Data Services
and a number of other products.
For additional support information please refer to
http://wso2.com/training/course-catalog/

Support
WSO2 Inc. offers a variety of development and production support
programs, ranging from Web-based support up through normal business
hours, to premium 24x7 phone support.
For additional support information please refer to http://wso2.com/support/
For more information on WSO2 WSAS, visit the WSO2 Oxygen Tank (http://wso2.org)

References

1. wsdl2code - http://tools.wso2.org/tools_wsdl2code
2. WSDL View - http://tools.wso2.org/tools_wsdlview
3. Try it - http://tools.wso2.org/tools_tryit
4. WSDL Converter - http://tools.wso2.org/tools_wsdlconverter
5. Services Validator - http://tools.wso2.org/tools_aarvalidator
6. Module Validator - http://tools.wso2.org/tools_marvalidator

Wedding Bells for Prasanna & Indika

One of my buddies Prasanna whom I've known for many many years got married today. I wish them a happy wedded life .. !!

Understanding WS Metadata Exchange - I

This article introduces different types of Web services metadata and their importance, explains the necessity for a standard way to encapsulate, publish and retrieve metadata and provides description of what is specified in WS Metadata Exchange specification.

An Excellent Hand Book on Applying for Grad Schools

I have been doing some research on applying for grad school. This is an excellent hand book that I found which I think most you out there who wish to purse higher studies would find useful. It describes what it is all about obtaining a PhD in Computer Science, why you would to obtain one and things which you need to pay attention when you applying for a top research college.