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WSO2 Releases New Microservices Framework for Java

• By John K. Waters
• March 8, 2016

Integration middleware maker WSO2 released a new framework for Java developers building microservices. The WSO2 Microservices Framework for Java 1.0 (MS4J) is a lightweight, open source framework for creating Java-based microservices that support container-based deployments.

The new framework is designed to provide a fast and easy programming model and an end-to-end microservices architecture, explained Isabelle Mauny, WSO2's vice president of product management, to ensure agile delivery and flexible deployment of complex, service-oriented, Java-based applications.

"The evolution in the past year and a half around Docker and container technology is influencing how people are deploying and managing their infrastructure," Mauny told ADTmag. "It went from hype to mainstream really fast. Containers becoming mainstream has been something that we can easily support on our platform by replacing and evolving our in-JVM multi-tenancy with container-based multi-tenancy. What you are seeing is the evolution of Carbon from an in-JVM multi-tenancy model to a Docker/Kubernetes container model. Every product we offer is going to be able to take advantage of that architecture."

WSO2's flagship offering, Carbon, is an integrated, componentized middleware platform with features for orchestrating business processes, composing applications, and developing services using the company's Developer Studio toolset. Carbon is an open-source platform based on OSGi standards, and it's the basis for all the company's products.

The MS4J framework is designed to support apps developed for an architecture in which complex applications are composed of small, independent processes communicating with each other using language-agnostic APIs—an architecture in which high performance and a low footprint are critical features. Microservices developed using MSF4J can boot within 400 milliseconds in a Docker container and can easily be added to a Docker image definition, Mauny said. "We are giving you a framework that is extremely small," she said. "If you create a fat jar, which has all the dependencies together, it will be no more than 10 megs."

The new framework leverages annotations, such as Java API for RESTful Web Services (JAX-RS) annotations, both to write and monitor microservices. The framework includes built-in metrics based on the WSO2 Data Analytics Server, security token validation based on the WSO2 Identity Server, and WSO2 Developer Studio-based tooling for generating microservices projects starting from a Swagger API definition, among other capabilities. The release package also includes microservices samples to help developers get started quickly, plus documentation available on GitHub.

"Most of our customers are either starting to look seriously at deploying their applications on top of container based infrastructures, or they are planning to do so within the next 12 to 18 months," Mauny said.

WSO2 Microservices Framework for Java 1.0 is available now. It's an open source framework released under an Apache 2.0 license, so it requires no licensing fees. WSO2 is offering additional service and support options. More information is available on the company Web site.