WSO2 Carbon 3.0 Aids Middleware Configuration

By adding a Component Manager to its Carbon 3.0 platform, WSO2 has upgraded its open source middleware suite.

WSO2 Carbon 3.0 is a core management console and service platform that provides operational statistics, clustering, security, logging and tracing for a set of middleware products. The Component Manager addition allows Java developers to select middleware functionality through a simple point-and-click technique.

WSO2 middleware is built from Java modules following OSGi principles, which dictate certain information on the version and capabilities of each module be readable by other modules that might seek services from it. WSO2 middleware relies in part on Web services to create a smaller footprint, lighter weight set of middleware functions than typical Java middleware.

Carbon 3.0 lets developer choose the needed middleware functions," and Carbon automatically handles the provisioning – no integration required," said Sanjiva Weerawarana, CEO of WSO2, a Sri Lankan firm contributing to the Apache Software Foundation's open source code projects and using Apache code bases in its products. WSO2 products are themselves open source code under the Apache 2.0 license. "Carbon 3.0 puts IT developers in the driver's seat," he added in the May 4 announcement.

WSO2 at the same time upgraded its Web Services Application Server to release 3.2, its Enterprise Service Bus to version 3.0, its Governance Registry to release 3.5 and its Identity Server to 3.0. All now work with the Carbon 3.0 platform.

Carbon 3.0 also supports WS-Discovery, the Web Services Dynamic Discovery standard established by the OASIS industry group last year. With WS-Discovery, Carbon 3.0 automates the configuration of an application or set of composite services by simultaneously finding all the services it needs to rely upon on the Web. WS-Discovery sends out inquiries via a low level SOAP protocol to connect to the services.

In most Java application deployments, programmers must go through a manual process of finding outside services and adding connections, if they have not been previously tied into the middleware being used.

Carbon 3.0 and its related middleware products are freely downloadable from WSO2's Web site. The firm sells technical support and consulting for them. It is positioning them for use both in the enterprise and in external, cloud operations.