OSGi
The OSGi Alliance is an open standardization organization formed by Sun Microsystems, International Business Machines, Ericsson and others in March 1999 (after it was first called the Connected Alliance). Over the past few years it has specified a Java programming language based service platform that can be remotely managed. The core part of the specifications is a framework that defines an application life cycle model and a service registry. Based on this Framework, a large number of OSGi Services have been defined: Log, Configuration Management, Preferences, Http Service (runs servlets), XML parsing, Device Access, Package Admin, Permission Admin, Start Level, User Admin, IO Connector, Wire Admin, Jini, and UPnP.
- R1 released in May 2000
- R2 released in May 2002
- R3 released in March 2003
The Framework implements an elegant, complete, and dynamic component model. Applications (called bundles) can be remotely installed, started, stopped, updated and uninstalled without requiring a reboot (management of Java packages/classes is specified in painstaking detail). Life cycle management is defined in APIs which allows the remote downloading of management policies. The service registry allows bundles to detect new services, or the going away of services, and adapt accordingly.
The original focus was on Service Gateways but the applicability turned out to be much wider. The OSGi specifications are now used from mobile phones to the new version of the open source Eclipse IDE (which now includes an open source compliant version of International Business Machines's Framework called SMF).
The application areas of the OSGi Service Platform are: Service gateways, cars, Mobile telephony, industrial automation, building automation, PDAs, grid computing, white goods (e.g. BSH), entertainment (e.g. iPronto), fleet management, and IDEs.
Specifications are developed by the members in an open process and made available to the public free of charge and without licensing conditions. The OSGi Alliance has a compliance program that is open to members only. Currently 12 compliant implementations exist.
In 2003 Eclipse selected OSGi as the underlying runtime for their plugin architecture. The Equinox project experimented with this idea and build the runtime for Eclipse R3 which is available since build M6 (December 2003).
In October 2003, Nokia, Motorola and other OSGi members formed a Mobile Expert Group (MEG) that will specify a service platform for the next generation of smart mobile phones, addressing some of the needs that MIDP cannot manage.
See also
References
- OSGi Service Platform, Release 3, IOS Press, ISBN 1-58603-311-5
External links
Referenced By
Bluetooth | Eclipse (computing) | JINI | Salutation | Service Location Protocol | UPNP | Universal plug-and-play | WECA | WIFI | Wi-Fi | Wireless Ethernet Compatibility Alliance | Wireless Fidelity
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