Sometimes it's easier to ask

While waiting for something to compile at 1am on the night before the night before Christmas, I came across Andrew's brush with JBossTS. There are some interesting quotes, like "JBossTS hasn't been built or developed using eclipse as far as I can tell" (JBossTS began life years before there was such a thing as Eclipse), and "Documentation surrounding great software tools is sometimes just laughable" (I like to think our docs are pretty good, given they've been updated for the past 20 years; but nothing's perfect) but overall I understand some of his concerns. The blog trail hasn't been updated since July, but if you're still struggling with this, get in touch here or ask questions on the Design Forum: I'd be more than happy to help fill in the blanks and maybe in the process improve JBossTS based on your feedback.

Transaction Processing in a Service Oriented Architecture

This should be an interesting cross post about the evolution of transaction processing and how it has been shaped by Web Services and SOA.

A minor rant around stand-alone transaction management and standards

Over the past few years there's been a backlash against application servers (both commercial and open source), with some people saying they're too heavy-weight. I'm not going to get into that argument here, but what does surprise me is the number of open source transaction managers that are trying to differentiate themselves on this very fact, as if it was something new and wonderful. Well guys I hate to break it to you but we, IBM, BEA and a few others have been doing that for years. In the open source arena, JBossTS was the first to run outside of an application server simply because it began life before there was such a thing! We've continued that over the intervening years, but maybe I just need to make it more explicit: JBossTS does not require any application server within which to run. I'm pretty sure I mentioned this before, but it's also highly embeddable, which we have proved time and again (yes, footprint size is very small, but the architecture is designed so that it doesn't require anything from the underlying environment).

Then there are some transaction service implementations (typically open source, but not exclusively) that seem to need to try to differentiate themselves by pouring scorn on transaction standards like OTS/JTS or WS-T: guys, if you have problems with these things then get involved in the process, but don't cry foul because the rest of the industry (and users) have got together to develop them. Oh, and yes while it's true that JBossTS has been at the forefront of these (and other) standards since the start, the architecture is not built on any of them since, once again, with the exception of XA they all came after JBossTS (aka Arjuna) started life.

Now maybe we don't go around "blowing our own trumpet" enough, but I think that's got a lot to do with our background: in academia there's a heavy peer review process that permeates throughout everything you do and unsubstantiated statements quickly become something you avoid like the plague. We've had 20+ years to document what we've done in this way, so everything has been verified and screened for accuracy. Maybe we assume too much that people will check that backlog of information, particularly in this day and age with so many good internet search engines. However, maybe we need to change that and start revisiting our previous publications and discussions more to refresh people's memories.

So if you're a user looking for some or all of the following: power, configurability, performance, openness, pedigree, flexibility, excellent documentation, standards (where necessary), extensibility, embeddability, stand-alone or application server deployment options, continuous vision, knowledge base, 24x7 support, etc. etc., then there really is only one option: JBossTS. TIBCO, webMethods and many others over the past 20+ years have made the JBossTS choice and found it to be the right one.

Heuristics, one-phase commit and compensations

Another cross post that may be of interest.

WS-AT and SOA

Just a cross post.

XTS update

It's nice to see that there are other commercial and OSS vendors looking to provide new implementations of WS-TX. However, it is worth stressing the points I made earlier: not only was XTS the world's first Web Services transactions implementation, but it is the only open source implementation that has been tested for interoperability with IBM, Microsoft and others. So if interoperability with heterogeneous implementations is important to you, come talk to us.

Trying to put JBossTS into perspective: XTS

Up to this point we've covered the core engine component, the local JTA, and then the JTS and remote JTA implementations. That leaves XTS: the Web Services transactions component.

There has been a Web Services transactions component in JBossTS since it's HP days, when it was called HP Web Services Transactions (HP-WST). Once again it was the world's first Web Services transactions product. At that time it was based on the OASIS Business Transactions Protocol (BTP), which didn't get the support of major vendors. Over the intervening years we tracked, authored and influenced BTP, WS-CAF, WS-T and then WS-TX. Each time, we used XTS as the platform for testing these protocols.

Just like the local JTA and JTS implementations, XTS leverages the core engine. It has no dependency on CORBA. It has no dependency on JTA. As well as webMethods, others have used XTS successfully in the past too. Because all of the various Web Services transactions specifications/standards have included support for extended (non-ACID) transactions, XTS is able to exploit yet more of the power of the underlying core engine: the ability to relax all of the ACID properties in a controlled manner. So unlike other vendors, we have the same core engine providing the support for all of the transaction models!

Then of course there's end-to-end transactions (E2EX as we were calling it in HP). We've been talking about transaction bridging for many years and working on one prototype or implementation after another. But the recent work that Jonathan et al have been doing has really pulled everything together into a more coherent approach, at least as far as JEE is concerned.

I could say more about the architecture of all of our components. I could also wax lyrically about recovery or extended transactions. But most of what I'd say is covered by the various hyperlinks I've embedded throughout these entries. So please follow them and read up. If you've got any questions or comments, put them against the relevant entry or post in our forums. But overall, enjoy using JBossTS as much as we've enjoyed developing it over the past 20 years.