Updated: added sub module instructions for Git. I've talked in the past about providing support for truly modular applications, and I'm pleased to announce that you can now access the early prototype code of SpringSource Slices. Save the updated file and you're ready to try the Slices sample application. The Slices repository contains a version of Spring 3's PetClinic sample that we're constantly enhancing and improving as we add new features to Slices. Before using the sample, its dependencies must be added to your dm Server installation. The dependencies are listed in the sample's…

You'll be pleased to know that much of what you have learnt about web applications in dm Server remains the same. We are aiming to keep the most features the same in dm Server, but the move to the Web Container does necessitate some changes. At the same time, we're taking advantage of the code rework to integrate some of the more popular feature requests we see from our users.

Updated: added version control instructions for Git. For the last few months I've been working with Subbarao Meduri, Graham Charters, Hal Hildebrand and others from the OSGi Enterprise Expert Group on the RFC66 Web Container specification. The Web Container specification defines how WAR files can be deployed on an OSGi service platform in a standard way. This is extremely interesting for us, because dm Server has supported WAR files for nearly 18 months now and we are excited to be able to work towards a standard model. As an end user, you'll be able to deploy WAR files on OSGi without…

Development work on dm Server 2.0 has been fully underway for some time now and I'm pleased to announce that the first milestone is available for download. Downloads are available from our home page. You can find more information about the features in this release and the coming release in my previous entry. In this blog entry I'll outline: For the development of the 2.0 release, the dm Server team have adopted Scrum. You can see our current sprint and release backlogs in our JIRA. As ever, the development of dm Server is driven by the requirements of our users. If you see an item on the…

We get a lot of questions from dm Server users about what to expect in the next few releases. In this blog entry, I will outline the main features that we have on our roadmap. We are following Scrum practices so you can expect to see reasonably frequent milestones as output from our sprints, and we are flexible in handling new requirements and changes in priorities. Shared repositories allow you to have a centralized location for managing the artifacts that are available to be installed in your dm Server instances. These shared repositories can then be added to a dm Server configuration at any…

Over the past few months, the community has shown a great deal of interest in dm Server. The forums are very active and we always have stimulating discussions when presenting at conferences. We've noticed that a lot of the same questions come up as users start developing their first applications for dm Server, and so we've put together a Getting Started Guide to help get you up to speed much more quickly. By reading the Getting Started Guide and studying the accompanying sample you'll learn best practices for : The guide is available in HTML and PDF formats, and the full code for the sample…

In the recent days and weeks, we've seen an increasing amount of interest in the future of build solutions for applications made up of OSGi bundles. Due to our heavy involvement with OSGi, this is something that is near and dear to our hearts and we've spent a long time looking at customer requirements and solutions for those requirements. In this blog entry, I will outline the requirements that we have identified and present the solutions that we see to these requirements. I'm very interested in hearing from anyone who has extra requirements, thinks the requirements we have are bogus or has…

As promised to the attendees of my sessions, here is the content for my dm Server and concurrency sessions. The slides and demo code for this presentation were attached to my previous entry: Getting Started with SpringSource dm Server. While I was at the conference I met with David Winterfeldt from Spring by Example who pointed me at his great dm Server tutorial. The slides for the Advanced Concurrency presentation can be found here and the demo code is here. Slides from last year's concurrency presentation can be found here.

Updated 28-Oct-2008: Added up-to-date sample links and link to third sample Last night I presented 'Introduction to SpringSource dm Server' at the Philadelphia Spring User's Group. During this presentation I created a small application called GreenPages, demonstrating all the major aspects of dm Server. I promised the attendees that I would post the application and the slides here. In the last few weeks since the GA release of dm Server many people have been asking about the best way to get started with dm Server, so I'm using this entry to collect all the relevant information together…