Re: New Feature: Configuration Import/Export

[Sachin Patel]

2,3,4 This definitely is the direction I see the tooling support  
going.  We are discussing changes in the WTP Server Tools Framework  
to allow adopters to extend and provide similar functionality for  
their servers/runtimes.  So these are good usage scenarios I can  
bring up during my discussions with them.

- sachin


On Mar 24, 2006, at 9:44 PM, Matt Hogstrom wrote:

Aaron,

I'll set this up later and give it a spin.  I think everyone has  
been considering how to get to the pluggable server so I'll throw  
in my 2c about what I think would be useful from a user  
perspective.  I don't know enough about the internals of G to know  
how to implement it though.

AppServers that I'm aware of all operate under the paradigm of  
installing the AppServer and then iteratively defining resources  
(DataSources, JMS Queues, etc.) and then installing and  
maintainging the applications that run in the containers.  Of  
course they are all monolithic monsters that have everything in  
them that most people don't want or need.

I think Little-G and now the work your doing are the right  
direction and are a new paradigm for the industry.  Here are tyhe  
scenarios that I think make sense as being useful.

1. User downloads a full Geronimo instance and does initial  
customization using the installer.  Pretty much like the paradigm  
described above.

2. User downloads a bootstrap agent (much like Cygwin) and then  
chooses either the pacakges they want (specific OSS projects) or  
the features they want (JMS, Servlet 2.4, EJB 1.1, Spring, etc.)   
The downloaded agent would resolve the required dependencies and  
suck down the appropriate parts and configure the runtime.

3. Similar paradigm to above but rather than running a single  
server instance they would specify a target location to export a  
server image that would be bootable.  The instance they operate  
from is an AppServer factory and not an AppServer instance.  The  
interfaces would include a GUI (nice user interface, dynamic  
resolution of dependencies, etc.) as well as a command line utility  
that could build the instances required for a specific set of  
applications.


4. A variation on the above would also install the application  
artifacts and create disposable runtimes.  Users could then take  
these images and distribute them in a cluster and they would be  
fully functional containers but are designed to be disposed of  
after use.  The paradigm of defining and iterating a server  
instance doesn't exist in this mode.  The "disposable" instances  
would be able to federate into a managable cluster from an  
operations perspective but would be limited to starting and  
stopping the servers and pulling runtime statistics.

Anyway, personally I'm interested in options 3 and 4.  I think its  
a fresh approach to managed runtimes and provides all the  
functionality of J2EE and other programming models without much of  
the fuss.

The term I use fo rthe above is Geronimo MTO (Made to Order).  Kind  
of like Burger King where you can have it your way.

I'd appreciate comments on the above.

Matt

Aaron Mulder wrote:
I've just added a new feature to the console whereby it can export an
installed configuration to a CAR file, and also install previously
uninstalled configurations (CAR files and dependency JAR files)  
from a
Maven repository (though at present, it depends on a properties file
being in the repository the provide some metadata on the available
CARs).  It also still doesn't have any reasonable feedback during the
download process.
Anyway, I'm not really looking at this as a final definition of the
feature, more a look at what we can do so we can talk about the best
way to do it.  (For example, we've talked about how it would be nice
to have command-line tools to do this, and while some of the code
could be extracted, we'd potentially need a separate file upload
solution, if we can't reuse the remote-deploy web app.  Also, it can
only install from a Maven repo [vs a direct file upload] so it can
fetch needed dependencies.  Also, it doesn't take advantage of the
soon-to-be-on-iBiblio Maven repository manager.)
As a conversation starter, it would be nice to distribute Geronimo
without any sample applications to make it a little leaner and faster
to start -- just have the screen in the console that lets you  
download
and install any of them that you want.  I also think it would be nice
to distribute without Directory and some of the other add-ons, and
provide the ability to download and install those, ServiceMix,  
Quartz,
and other packages we know of integration for.
If you want to take a look at this, there's an Import/Export entry in
the application part of the console navigation bar (in HEAD).  You
need to set up some Maven repo to point it to (though for a REAL  
quick
start you can just use a file URL like
file:///home/ammulder/.maven/repository).  And then you need a  
file in
the root of the Maven repo called geronimo-configurations.properties
with entries like this:
Category.ConfigId=Description
Then enter the URL to your Maven repo in the screen in the console,
and it'll list all the configurations from the properties file,
grouped by the categories you specified, and let you install anything
that's not already available in the local server.  I've attached a
sample that exposes some of the Geronimo web apps if you want a real,
real quick start.
Thanks,
    Aaron