Openspaces is more testable, not true.

I've been pushing non invasive middleware for some time now. ObjectGrid was the first result of that in so much as it is a Java jar. You put it on the class path and then you use it. Easy. Of course, it also works within any recent version of WebSphere and should work in competitive application servers. A big advantage of non invasive middleware is testability as you can test in a lightweight container such as J2SE. We don't force a special container on you, you use J2SE or the one you already have invested in.

I was just reading Natis blog on testing and anyone would think that what he was describing was new. Of course it isn't, as ObjectGrid customers already know. ObjectGrid has been lightweight since the beginning and can run within a simple J2SE environment that can be started in eclipse easily. This is how the ObjectGrid development team does most of its work on ObjectGrid itself. Just start your two containers using eclipse, set your breakpoints and then test it. You can use JUnit to do testing of course as we do for our testing within the team.

We have customers using ObjectGrid with eclipse in exactly this fashion and needless to say it's pretty productive when compared with using a full stack, i.e. J2EE etc. As usual, Nati makes great points; they just also apply to most products on the market including ObjectGrid of course. It is not an exclusive quality of anything gigaspaces is doing; most vendors are doing the whole non invasive middleware gig today. This isn't a differentiator.

Until some other vendors pick up Open spaces, it remains a proprietary API for Gigaspaces. I'm looking forward more and more to the spring experience conference in December as it'll be interesting to have some discussions face to face rather than in the blogosphere.

Comments

[Edward]

Interesting info. I will pass this along to my WebSphere Consultants.

Thanks!

Edward Pellon
Peningo Systems
Providing IT Consultants to the Business Community with expertise in WebSphere, Tivoli and DB2 – UDB for years

[Edward]

Interesting info. I will pass this along to my WebSphere Consultants.

Thanks!

Edward Pellon
Peningo Systems
Providing IT Consultants to the Business Community with expertise in WebSphere, Tivoli and DB2 – UDB for years

[Nati Shalom]

"Until some other vendors pick up Open spaces, it remains a proprietary API for Gigaspaces. I'm looking forward more and more to the spring experience conference in December as it'll be interesting to have some discussions face to face rather than in the blogosphere"

Hi Bill
One clarification OpenSpaces is not about API its about creation of a set of abstractions and programming semantics that will provide better separation between the application code and the underlying runtime components (messaging, data, processing). This creates higher degree of flexibility on how we as vendors can address the non vendor locking concern even in case where there is no agreement on standard API. IMO it also makes it easier for different vendors to agree on common set of abstraction and semantics (without nessaraly agreeing on standard API) since it takes into consideration the fact that we also need to keep degree of flexibility to compete on the implementation. You can read more on this on Gev's recent post: Ignorance Is Bliss: Abstractions Vs. Standards http://gevaperry.typepad.com/main/2007/08/ignorance-is-bl.html

See you at the Spring Experience.

Nati S.
GigaSpaces