The Freedom to Achieve

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The Freedom to Achieve
Independent, Open Solutions for Business and
Government www.platinumsolutions.com
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Keel The Next Generation Meta-Framework for Open
Source Development
SD Best Practices 2004 Conference
Expo September 22, 2004 345pm -
515pm Presented by Adam Rossi President,
PlatinumSolutions adam.rossi_at_platinumsolutions.com
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Why Me?

• I am an open source Java developer, one of the
  primary developers of the Keel Open Source
  meta-framework, contributor to many other OS
  projects
• Developer of inter-agency web applications on
  classified networks high complexity, difficult
  deployment environments
• I have seen good projects, I have seen bad
  projects, and I have witnessed the incredible
  impact of open frameworks

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About PlatinumSolutions

• Software development firm specializing in secure
  application development, inter-agency
  collaboration, and information management
• Main clients are law enforcement and intelligence
  agencies
• Hostage negotiation support, bombing incident
  analysis, cryptanalysis, computer forensics,
  what-have-you

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PowerPoint

• Power Corrupts.
• PowerPoint Corrupts Absolutely.
• Luckily I am using OpenOffice.

from PowerPoint is Evil
http//www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.09/ppt2.html
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The Bottom Line

• Software development, especially web development,
  is growing more (not less) complex
• Java 2 Enterprise (J2EE) is the most mature
  development environment, but raw API's do not
  provide structure
• There are a multitude of excellent, high-quality
  open source components and toolkits, but they are
  difficult to string together into a real
  application and to deploy
• In order to harness the power of the J2EE
  platform and the functionality of open source
  software components, while maintaining high
  project quality and discipline frameworks are a
  NECESSITY
• The Keel Meta-Framework provides enormous
  benefits under complex development and deployment
  scenarios

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Keel Review in March 2004 Issue Software
Development Magazine
think of all the plumbing code you wont have
to write! Especially when it comes to things
like replicating your application over multiple
servers (yes, theyve thought of that,
too).-Software Development Magazine, March 2004
friends, this project is going
places!-Software Development Magazine, March
2004
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A very quick case study LANG
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Case Study LANG

• LANG is an application that facilitates the
  sharing of language specialists between agencies
  in law enforcement and intelligence
• Supported by a consortium of government agencies
  interested in sharing scarce resources
• Developed by PlatinumSolutions using open source
  software

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Why Open Source for LANG?

• Compressed schedule, limited funding
• Can be deployed internally and customized
  replaces in-agency systems
• Can be deployed at member agencies or centrally,
  no licensing restrictions
• Paranoid agencies can peak inside
• Flexible Can accommodate other agencies,
  implementations

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Why not Proprietary?

• Off the shelf solutions did not exist
• Needed to be able to customize for each agency in
  unpredictable areas
• Very short development time frame
• Needed to respond to change quickly
• Agencies want full ability to audit code
• Needed to integrate with many components

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LANG Statistics
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LANG Statistics
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Outcome

• Core development done in 4 months with 3
  developers
• Project Cost very low development cost, no
  ongoing fees or licensing
• Large number of agencies participate in working
  group
• Highly effective system that drastically improves
  the process of sharing

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Why OSS from PM POV?

• Do more with less
• Reduce project complexity and effort, no
  reinventing wheels
• Provide structure, logical divisions, separation
  of concern
• Increase Quality full code audit, better
  testing, easier for novice developers
• Faster agile development, pre-developed
  components

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Other OSS Benefits

• Standards Compliance
• No Proprietary Lock-in, stick ups, and
  project-plan killing closed system dead-ends
• Consistency
• License Management, Costs

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What is a Framework?

• A framework is a partially complete software
  system that is intended to be instantiated.
• It defines the architecture for a family of
  systems and provides the basic building blocks to
  create them.
• It also defines the places were adaptations for
  specific functionality should be made.
• (Buschmann 1996)

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Framework Advantages

• Brings structure and consistency to application
  development
• Shortens development schedule
• Reduces project risk and cost by removing
  complexity, builds on tried and tested
  foundations
• Provides generic services such as logging,
  security, and persistence

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Frameworks Solid Design

• Encourages industry-accepted best practices,
  including separation of concerns (SOC) and
  component-oriented programming (COP)
• Better component and module isolation easier to
  manager, distribute tasks, test, and deploy
• Design patterns, best of breed components

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Components

• What Is A Component?
• "An entity that fulfills a specific role or
  provides a specific service".
• Should be replaceable with another component that
  fulfills the same role
• Every other technical industry relies on
  component manufacturing why not software?

from Mike Nash's Putting the Pieces Together
http//www.platinumsolutions.com/2002-11-12_Puttin
g_The_Pieces_Together.pdf
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Service

• To some degree, overlaps with component
• A service is often made up of several components
  working together
• All services are a component, but not vice-versa
• Services are more general-purpose than
  components. Services provide system functions
  not specific to business, such as an
  authorization or scheduler service

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Meta-Frameworks

• A toolkit designed to Span, bridge and connect
  together multiple application frameworks and
  toolkits.
• Allow multiple component models to interact
  efficiently
• Allow the features and benefits of one framework
  and toolkit to be used in another.
• Use the best component for the job, no matter
  what framework or architecture

from Mike Nash's Putting the Pieces Together
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Keel OS Meta-Framework
www.keelframework.org

• An open source framework based on J2EE
• Ideally suited for large scale application
  development
• Distributed, message-based architecture
• Pluggable spine / implementation-independent

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Keel Offers

• Keel is a highly extensible backbone for
  integrating commercial and open source components
• Connects multiple frameworks, toolkits, and
  services, treating each one as a back box
• Extreme deployment flexibility From single
  machine to distributed message-driven
• Open Source that Already Works

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Before Keel

• Services are bound directly
• Becomes difficult to upgrade and maintain
• Very difficult to switch services
• Ball of Mud

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After Keel

• Commercial and Open Source services plug in to
  a backbone
• Provides strong guidance for development
• Easy upgrade, modify

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Keel Design
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Implementation Detail
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Keel Container

• Leverages Apache Avalon
• Avalon provides Separation of Concerns (SOC) Do
  one thing at a time, don't blur boundaries
• The Keel container provides Inversion of Control
  (IOC), a specific instance of SOC
• The container takes components through a
  lifecycle, gives it environment info
• The component has no ability to call the
  container
• Environment can be changed without affecting the
  component

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Keel Configs and Lifecycles

• The Keel container takes components through a
  lifecycle create, manage, run, and terminate
  them
• Examples Securable, Poolable, Configurable,
  Suspendable, Threadsafe

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Keel Models Explained

• Smallest unit of work in Keel
• Has one required method execute()
• Models have inputs, outputs, and commands
• Models are faceless, they have absolutely no
  knowledge of how they will be interacted with in
  a GUI, command line, etc.

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Model Example
/ _at_avalon.component _at_avalon.service
typeorg.keel.services.model.Model
_at_x-avalon.info namehoj.hello
_at_x-avalon.lifestyle typesingleton
_at_model.model name"hoj.hello"
id"hoj.hello" logger"hoj" / public class
HelloWorld extends StandardLogEnabledModel
public ModelResponse execute(ModelRequest
request) throws ModelException
ModelResponse res request.createResponse()
res.addOutput("hello", "Hello World")
return res
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Securing the Model
/ _at_avalon.component _at_avalon.service
typeorg.keel.services.model.Model
_at_x-avalon.info namehoj.hello
_at_x-avalon.lifestyle typesingleton
_at_model.model name"hoj.hello"
id"hoj.hello" logger"hoj" / public class
HelloWorld extends StandardLogEnabledModel
implements Securable public ModelResponse
execute(ModelRequest request) throws
ModelException ModelResponse res
request.createResponse()
res.addOutput("hello", "Hello World")
return res
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Putting Models Together

• Sequences provide a simple 1, 2, 3 progression
  between models. Configured in XML
• Workflows provide a far more powerful, non-linear
  progression between models.
• Workflows support nester sub-flows, conditional
  logic, etc.

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Keel Workflow
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A Complex Workflow
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Keel Build

• Keel provides a powerful ANT-based build system
• Build system will package Keel application into
  appropriate deployment form (WAR, EAR, etc.)
• Build system will automatically fetch open source
  components from web

http//ant.apache.org
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Keel Deployments

• Keel provides incredible deployment flexibility
  from a single server, to a fault-tolerant cluster
  by changing build parameters
• Deployed components can communicate via web
  services, asynchronous messages, or direct
  channels

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Basic Deployment
All deployment diagrams from Distributed
Web-Applications using the Keel
Meta-Framework by Michael Nash, Keel
Meta-Framework Core Developer http//www.developer
.com/java/ent/article.php/3286461
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Deployment 2
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Deployment 3
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Deployment 4
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Deployment 5
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Keel Demonstrations
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Conclusion

• J2EE / Open Source is a powerful combination, but
  it is extremely complex
• Frameworks provide order, discipline, building
  blocks, and plumbing
• The Keel Meta-Framework is a powerful open source
  framework that provides incredible benefits to
  development and deployment
• Don't re-invent the wheel!

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• For a copy of these slides
• http//www.platinumsolutions.com/resources/

email adam.rossi_at_platinumsolutions.com