What is the TCO difference between IBM WebSphere and Open Source JBoss? – Just my two cents…

I have spotted a really great article about comparing prices of open source and proprietary products: “What is the TCO difference between WebSphere and JBoss?”. The interesting aspect is, that this article is written by an IBM-biased company (Prolifics). Usually, only open source vendors write such comparisons. I really like this article, seriously! It is good to see comparisons not only by open source vendors, but also by vendors such as IBM (in this case, Prolifics cannot be considered unbiased, it is an IBM consulting company – but that is fine). I just want to give my two cents to this article in the following…
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Enterprise-ready Tool Support for Apache Camel

Apache Camel is my favorite integration framework on the Java platform due to great DSLs, a huge community, and so many different components. Camel is used by many developers from different companies all over the world. However, most guys are not aware that some really cool tooling is available for Camel, too. Many people ask me about Camel tooling when I do talks at conferences. This is the reason for this short blog post about Camel tooling.
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Avatar as Alternative for Java Server Faces (JSF) and JavaFX? – JavaOne 2012

Project Avatar was announced at JavaOne 2011. After no further information until JavaOne 2012, some new information was announced at this year’s conference. Even a little demo was shown in the keynote. Contrary to JavaFX, Avatar offers the realization of modern web applications without requiring a browser plugin. Web applications are realized with HTML5 and JavaScript (Nashorn implementation) on client-side, and Java EE backend on server-side. Avatar is also suitable for creating mobile applications (smartphone, tablet), because it does not depend on a browser plugin.
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Apache Camel Tutorial – Introduction to EIP, Routes, Components, Testing, and other Concepts

Data exchanges between companies increase a lot. The number of applications, which must be integrated increases, too. The interfaces use different technologies, protocols and data formats. Nevertheless, the integration of these applications shall be modeled in a standardized way, realized efficiently and supported by automatic tests. Such a standard exists with the Enterprise Integration Patterns (EIP) [1], which have become the industry standard for describing, documenting and implementing integration problems. Apache Camel [2] implements the EIPs and offers a standardized, internal domain-specific language (DSL) [3] to integrate applications. This article gives an introduction to Apache Camel including several code examples.
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When to use JavaFX 2 instead of HTML5 for a Rich Internet Application (RIA)?

These days, we are starting a new project for realizing a Rich Internet Application (RIA). One of the first questions is: Which technologies and frameworks shall we use? The backend will be Java or another modern JVM language, as we are mainly experienced Java developer. In most use cases, we also prefer web frameworks, which allow to code mostly in Java, as many of us just have basic knowledge regarding HTML and JavaScript. A decision has to be made for the upcoming project: Shall we use HTML5 or JavaFX 2 for realizing the web client? We took a look at pros and cons, which are listed below in this blog post.
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Spoilt for Choice: Which Integration Framework to use – Spring Integration, Mule ESB or Apache Camel?

Three lightweight integration frameworks are available in the JVM environment: Spring Integration, Mule ESB and Apache Camel. They implement the well-known Enteprise Integration Patterns (EIP, http://www.eaipatterns.com) and therefore offer a standardized, domain-specific language to integrate applications. These integration frameworks can be used in almost every integration project within the JVM environment – no matter which technologies, transport protocols or data formats are used. All integration projects can be realized in a consistent way without redundant boilerplate code. This article compares all three alternatives and discusses their pros and cons.
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Why I will use Java EE (JEE, and not J2EE) instead of Spring in new Enterprise Java Projects in 2012

The question comes up often. It came up in my new project in November 2011, too. I will use Java EE (JEE, and not J2EE) instead of the Spring framework in this new Enterprise Java project. I know: Several articles, blogs and forum discussions are available regarding this topic. Why is there a need for one more? Because many blogs talk about older versions of Java EE or because they are not neutral (I hope to be neutral). And because many people still think thank EJBs are heavy! And because the time has changed: It is Java EE 6 time now, J2EE is dead. Finally! Finally, because not only JEE 6 is available, but also several application servers. I do not want to start a flame war (too many exist already), I just want to describe my personal opinion of the JEE vs. Spring „fight“…
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Pros and Cons – When to use a Portal and Portlets instead of just Java Web-Frameworks

I had to answer the following question: Shall we use a Portal and if yes, should it be Liferay Portal or Oracle Portal? Or shall we use just one or more Java web frameworks? This article shows my result. The short answer: A Portal makes sense only in a few use cases, in the majority of cases you should not use one. In my case, we will not use one.
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