WSO2 gets its own Surf!

I went surfing at Woolacombe a few weeks ago. The surf was fantastic, but even better, I see that WSO2 now owns the beach - check out the sign! (And no. I didn't stick a WSO2 sticker on the sign. Its honestly part of it.)

Microsoft joins AMQP

Microsoft has joined the AMQP working group. A good day for AMQP in terms of visibility, adoption and industry acceptance.

Another way of creating AMIs

When I blogged Azeez's instructions on how to create AMIs, of course that wasn't the only way. If you want WSO2's servers as AMI's (or other VM images) simply checkout what CohesiveFT have done!

RESTful PHP Web Services

A new book by Samisa. Highly recommended!

Nice guide from Azeez on making AMIs

Very clearly laid out - a must read for Amazon EC2 newbies:
http://afkham.org/2008/10/how-to-create-ec2-ami.html

WSO2 en Francais

Pardonnez mon Franglais. Il y'a un tutorial de la framework WSF/PHP ici.

(A tutorial in French on installing WSF/PHP on a WampServer platform).

Mock Services with the WSO2 ESB

A very detailed blog entry here. Recommended reading.

Southwest and WSO2

WSO2 got a "cease and desist" type of letter yesterday from Southwest Airlines. I was frankly pretty surprised as we haven't gone into the airline business yet. And the private jet is... well the private jet is still just fantasy.

It turns out they didn't like Jonathan's Southwest Checkin Mashup. I guess I can see why. Jonathan's cool piece of technology means that anyone who knows about it can get an A-rated boarding pass and therefore gets on the plane earlier and gets the best seats. Now obviously this can't scale. If everyone on the plane used the Mashup, then we'd be back to square one.

So Jonathan has pulled the Mashup from our online site Mooshup.com.

On the other hand I personally think that if you are smart enough to download the Mashup Server, cadge the code off Jonathan and run it, you deserve a better seat!

The full story is here.

Thin or fat

My kids are both like beanpoles, and they like to tease me about my, er, physique. Last holiday my daughter was having a go once again, so I pointed out to her:

"There is no point have a thin body if you have a fat head."

Axis2 hints

Keith Chapman has put together a great set of Axis2 hints and tips.

Why never to wait for the next big thing!

Linux is 17 years old. A few nice things struck me in reading this. 

1. How quickly it became usable. I remember using Linux as my full time OS in 1994. I first installed it at least a year before in 1993. I have trouble remembering exactly when, but I clearly recall it being on about 25 floppies. Definitely somewhere in 1993, especially looking at the Slackware History. Looking at that it was already 51 floppies by Feb 1994. Now you might say 18 months is a long time. Of course it is. But what we are really talking about is not just the kernel, but the complete set of stuff around it, and packaging as a complete install. 

So in 18 months, Linux went from a "hackers" toy that needed Minix to build to a complete OS that anyone with 25 free floppies and a lot of patience to download them on a 9600 baud modem could use.

2. Linus is not just a geek. I mean this was him as a 22 year old. I really enjoyed reading his email.

3. At one point Linus says:

"I can (well, almost) hear you asking yourselves "why?".  Hurd will be
out in a year (or two, or next month, who knows."

Well, frankly, I'm glad he didn't wait! Hurd is still "not ready for production use, as there are still many bugs and missing features". 

Data Services

WSO2 has just launched our Data Services (DS) solution. WSO2 DS is a system aimed directly at the problem of exposing existing databases and data sources as services - securely, reliably and with as little bother as possible.

How does it work? Fundamentally there is an XML file that defines the mapping between either a SOAP interface or a REST resource-model and the underlying data. But rather than expect authors to write an XML file, we have a simple Web-based UI and Eclipse plug-in that creates these files.

This is actually technology that was previously available in WSO2 WSAS and won a SearchSOA Gold Award. So what is new? And why have we split it out from WSAS?

Well, firstly, our philosophy at WSO2 has always been to be language-neutral. We offer systems and libraries for PHP coders, C/C++ coders, JavaScript coders, Perl, Python, and more. So you can almost think of this solution as a system aimed at SQL coders: database admins, SQL programmers, data architects. If you can put together an SQL query or call a stored procedure then you can create a data service using our system.

So that explains why we split it from WSAS - effectively we wanted a system that didn't confuse Data with Java - you don't need to understand EJB, POJO, JPA, ORM, JAXWS, JSR181, or any other Java technology to create Data Services. (Of course you don't need to understand those to create Java Services with WSAS either - except just POJO).

But this isn't just a "split" from WSAS. In fact, this is a componentization. So the same Data Services component is now available standalone and will be available in the next WSAS.

Finally, what's new?

Three main items:

• firstly, the Eclipse plugin.
  
• Secondly, full REST support. Yes you can actually define a proper mapping between Resources (and the GET/PUT/POST/DELETE model) and the underlying database.
  
• Finally, you can create services that use data from distinct data sources. Suppose you have an Excel spreadsheet that has some customer numbers in it, but you need to look up each customer in the Oracle DB, you can do that very simply.
  

I have to give hats off to Sumedha for this. He has turned this from a cool experiment into a serious competitor in the Data Services space. Kudos to the rest of the team as well, who worked incredibly hard on this release.

More reading:
Sumedha's articles on Oxygentank

A week in Colombo

Every few months I spend an incredible week in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka is an amazing country, from the hill towns of Kandy and Nurawa Eliya to the beaches of Hikaduwwa and Benthota. The wild-life - the amazing birds, leopards, elephants, deer, wild boar. Its stunning.

But no. I didn't see any of that. Ok there was a small chipmunk thing on the hotel verandah at breakfast, but my amazing week was spent in the WSO2 offices on Flower Road. We have a truly outstanding technical team, and we spent the week reviewing the latest releases, planning the next, and discussing ongoing customer projects.

Every time I spend the week in Colombo, its hectic. I arrive after an 11 hour flight and jump straight into meetings, and then I'm usually working from first thing in the morning until either a working dinner or a late conference call with the US. 

I admit - I do usually find time to eat at Mango Tree or Gallery Cafe :)

Despite the jetlag and long hours I always come back revitalized and rejuvenated. 

So, while I'm keeping a mental list of the places I want to go in Sri Lanka, a week in Colombo is still a fantastic experience. 

Paul

PS when my family and I do get to explore SL its going to take a while! My current list includes:

* Staying at a tea plantation around Nurawa Eliya

* Hiking around the Horton Plains and to World's End

* The elephant orphanage

* Dambulla and Sigiriya, staying at the Kandalama hotel

* Luxury camping in Bundula national park

* A week of surfing at Hikaduwwa

* Lounging around in a colonial hotel in Galle

* The cool treetop experience that Jonathan found (whose name I can't remember)

* The list goes on! If you think I've missed something, let me know