Book Image

Spring Web Flow 2 Web Development

By : Markus Stäuble, Sven Lüppken
Book Image

Spring Web Flow 2 Web Development

By: Markus Stäuble, Sven Lüppken

Overview of this book

<p>Many web applications need to take the user through a defined series of steps such as e-commerce checkouts or user registrations. Spring Web Flow works well for rich and flexible user interaction, additionally it helps you to describe the flow of websites in complex processes. Spring Web Flow 2 provides the perfect way to build these kinds of features, keeping them secure, reliable, and easy to maintain.<br /><br />This book provides a platform on which you can build your own applications and services. It gives detailed information on Spring basics and covers core topics involving testing, security, and so on. We develop a complete, robust web application using the latest version of Spring, where page navigation is done on-the-fly.<br /><br />This book teaches you how to work with Spring Web Flow. It covers both basic and advanced aspects and provides a detailed reference of the features Spring Web Flow. The book helps readers to extend the framework. <br /><br />The integration of Spring and Java Server Pages is clearly explained in the book. The book also explains the essential modules of the complete Spring framework stack and teaches how to manage the control flow of a Spring web application.<br /><br />The Spring Faces module will provide integration between Spring Web Flow and Java Server Faces (JSF). Testing, an important aspect of the software development process is covered towards the end; the question of how to test a Spring Web Flow application is answered.</p>
Table of Contents (14 chapters)
Spring Web Flow 2 Web Development
Credits
About the Authors
About the Reviewers
Preface
flow.trac:The Model for the Examples

Appendix B. Running on the SpringSource dm Server

The SpringSource dm Server is a modular OSGi (Open Services Gateway initiative) -based Java server, which is designed to run Spring-based applications. This means the SpringSource dm Server is the first server which is dedicated to Spring Framework-based applications. This server acts as an application server for Spring applications.

Note

The web page of the OSGi alliance is http://www.osgi.org. Maybe you heard about OSGi from the development environment Eclipse (http://www.eclipse.org) because the plug-in technology of Eclipse is built on OSGi.

The SpringSource dm Server is based on the Spring Dynamic Module Kernel (dm-kernel). The first part of this appendix explains the architecture of the SpringSource dm Server and gives you a short introduction to the installation of the current distribution. At the time of this writing, Version 1.0.0 was the latest version. Therefore, our explanations are only valid for this release. This appendix will guide you on how to run your Spring Web Flow 2 applications on the SpringSource dm Server. We want to show you this because when you build your applications on the top of Spring Framework, it can be a good choice to run your applications on the SpringSource dm Server. As you can download the server for free, it is worth giving it a try.

Introduction to the SpringSource dm Server

The SpringSource dm Server is the runtime part of the SpringSource Application Platform (AP).

Note

The SpringSource Application Platform is a combination of SpringSource Enterprise and SpringSource dm Server. The SpringSource Enterprise is a support package from SpringSource, including an IDE with the name, SpringSource Tool Suite. For more information about SpringSource AP, visit http://www.springsource.com/products/suite/applicationplatform.

The SpringSource dm Server is built on the following technologies:

  • Spring Framework.

  • Tomcat, which is used as JEE web container.

    The selection of Apache Tomcat (http://tomcat.apache.org) as servlet container is obvious because of the acquisition of the company Covalent from SpringSource. Covalent is known in the community as an important supporter of the Tomcat project.

  • OSGi R4.1.

  • Equinox as an implementation of the OSGi specification.

    Equinox (http://www.eclipse.org/equinox/) is also used in Eclipse as the OSGi container.

  • Spring Dynamic Modules for OSGi.

    This module acts as a glue between OSGi and Spring. This means that with this module, you can leverage the full functionality of Spring inside an OSGi kernel.

  • SpringSource Tool Suite.

  • Spring Application Management Suite.

Note

It is important to know that the SpringSource Tool Suite ( STS) and the Spring Application Management Suite is only available through the commercial SpringSource Enterprise program. The STS is an IDE based on Eclipse to develop Spring applications, especially applications for the SpringSource dm Server. The Spring Application Management Suite is a web based console for managing Spring applications. The base protocol of this console is Java Management Extensions (JMX).

The following figure shows the architecture of the SpringSource dm Server. The heart of the server is the SpringSource Dynamic Module Kernel (dm Kernel). The dm Kernel is built on Equinox, which is shown as a layer under the dm Kernel. The applications that are running inside the SpringSource dm Server are modular, and each module has a personality. The personality of the application describes the type (web, batch, web service, and so on) of the application.

Note

The Release 1.0.0 of the SpringSource dm Server supports the bundle, web, and WAR personalities. This helps you run web applications in an easy way on the Spring Source dm Server. The future versions of this server will support more personalities.