One of the difficulties facing developers who want to create rich internet applications is HTML’s static nature, which requires that pages (unassisted by other scripting languages) must refresh in their entirety for any new information to load and appear. Technologies such as Ajax and Flash have been developed, at least in part, to overcome this limitation of HTML and facilitate the loading of new data onto a page without the requirement of a refresh. Many Web 2.0 companies have taken advantage of such technology in making their applications operate more seamlessly like desktop apps, but the technology still has quite a way to go.
Ajax, for example, isn’t designed to load new information onto a page unless that page has makes the initiative to request more data in the first place (i.e. the user interacts in a particular way with the page that causes it to ping the server for extra stuff). If you want to design an application that pushes information out to a page (say, up-to-the-second stock prices) whether or not the page has made a request, you can pull off the functionality with Ajax but your code won’t be “elegant” and it probably won’t be very efficient either.
Adobe is making a set of announcements tonight, the largest of which is meant to solve this issue of sending data back and forth with a visitor’s browser more elegantly, thereby helping developers create richer internet applications. The company has offered a product called LiveCycle Data Services (previously Flex Data Services) that works with Flex, a technology for building Flash applications. It provides advanced capabilities for Flash applets that allow them to connect up with server-side, back-end systems (in other words, to communicate “back home” with the server that originally loaded a page).
Tonight, Adobe is releasing an open sourced, beta version of LiveCycle Data Services called BlazeDS. The open source nature of BlazeDS will make it a welcome addition to the developer’s arsenal. But on top of opening it up, Adobe is adding extra functionality called HTTP streaming that enables clients (i.e. applets in end-user browsers) to initiate persistent connections with servers that allow those servers to push data back to the client whenever the server deems a transfer necessary (e.g. to send the latest stock price). The hope is that this technology will make it possible for data to flow both ways (from server and back) much more efficiently. The most notable difference for website visitors should be faster performance, and hopefully better functionality as well.
Adobe will also be making available something called LiveCycle Data Services Community Edition, basically BlazeDS but with Adobe quality control (i.e. certification) and support. This enterprise version of the technology, which the company compares to Red Hat’s enterprise offerings, will not be ready until early 2008 and pricing has yet to be disclosed.
In addition to the introduction of BlazeDS and its Community Edition, Adobe is releasing beta 3 versions of both Flex and AIR tonight. A commercial, non-open source version of BlazeDS (simply retaining the old name, LiveCycle Data Services) will also be maintained by Adobe and continue to offer some additional functionality not found in the open source version.
epoll!
ALERT!!
Hey Michael, the ‘Share’ link that you have at the bottom of the article opens up a site which is certified as code red by the McAfee’s SiteAdvisor.
Hey Mark,
Adobe has been doing all sorts of exciting things with their platform. First it was open-sourcing Flex and now LCDS. We have been using Flex and LCDS (and FDS- previous incarnation) for about a year now and have had a fantastic experience with both the technologies.
IMHO, more than building faster and better websites, this technology is going to revolutionize the enterprise. Rich Internet Applications bring a brand new world to the enterprise and now with the added ability of data pushes and client-server synchronization, think about all the uses: Real-time auto pushed reporting, automatic catalog updates, instant-pushed messaging among employees all over the globe and all using very clean XML based code on the front end and Java like interfaces on the back.
We use Adobe’s LCDS (and now BlazeDS :)) and Flex to build a product that helps manage the software development process, with customized skinnable desktops and dashboards, upto the second pushed reporting, gorgeous UIs and loads of other features.
Its finally time for the enterprise to become slick and fast!
Kudos to Adobe!
Mmmm…. I have enough trouble with the current batch of methodologies, and I could be wrong about this, but this sounds a bit like Ajax Comet + Jetty continuations…polling the server, but using Jetty to minimise threads to lighten the load on the server. And it’s not Flash specific (which this appears to be). It’s not quite pushing from the server, though…
I think I’m using big words without knowing what I’m talking about. again.
@Nicholas Bieber
you would be right ,
blazeDS is a fancy name for persistent flash socket servers which has been around since flash 6 , only difference now is they are opening it up , but a lot of frameworks have provided their own implementations, and others shun flash all together and go with things like COMET for web connection persistence.
The only reason this passes on TC is cause 99.995 percent of this audience doesn’t know any better.
Also this is not a replacement for LCDS , this is one of the service offerings in it that they are extracting out.
I meant to sign that as my name , My mistake , I need sleep.
Nima – I don’t want to wade into territory that I don’t quite understand either (I’m not a Flash developer, after all), however it was my understand after talking with Adobe that HTTP streaming – a new feature presented by BlazeDS – did differ from persistent flash socket servers and, in fact, didn’t involve sockets at all (whereas the traditional LCDS offering, which they will continue to have, does have socket based channels (RTMP) available. My impression was that using sockets was more troublesome than using HTTP streaming.
I like the feature which is about to come with live cycle especially that extra functionality for HTTP streaming to push data.
I’m thinking of buying Adumbee and turning the whole freaking place into a parking lot! At least then it would be usefull!
http://fakestev...er.blogspot.com
@Mark
The press release from Adobe does call BlazeDS a new product but read it and you’ll see that they are open-sourcing their existing LDS product and just giving it a new name. So BlazeDS is a persistent flash socket server and it is only for Flash-based apps (e.g., Flex and AIR). I don’t see any new technology here.
@FakeSteveBallmer
Google is thinking the same about your entire Redmond campus.
“Every time someone downgrades from Vista back to XP, and angel gets it wings.”
@Jeff,
You are right and wrong.
BlazeDS is a new product. It takes the underlying messaging and remoting technology from LC DS, but implements several news things, including HTTP streaming. It it not the just an open sourcing of the LC DS product, but rather an appropriate subset, that then has been evolved and added to.
HTH,
David
Adobe
Another attempt by Adobe to figure out how to make their unprofitable and failing enterprise business successful.
so we can use blazeDS in place of LCDS.
hope still I can do RemoteObject,WebService calls and AjaxBridge stuff like that..
what do you suggest? is it good go with blazeDS inplace of LCDS.
Thanks
Rathu
@David,
You might want to mention this on your web site. The press release and Adobe Labs page say that this is for Flex and AIR. We can’t read your mind ;-)
Hi will BlazeDs be very helpfull for the developer who is strugling for the database webservice?
As others have commented, BlazeDS rivals Comet. KnowNow itself was founded circa 2000 on the principles of HTTP real-time push; aka real-time content streaming. KnowNow and others take a pure browser approach to the frontend contending that any dependency on the runtime components, even if it’s as pervasive as Flash, is a limitation. Flexibility in messaging format is also key to pervasive adoption as a general purpose pub/sub application platform. Juxtapose this against Adobe support for a single format that is designed to drive a single vendor’s application use case needs. Existing pub/sub push platforms such as our own allow for a variety of messaging formats, both open and proprietary, such as JSON, RSS, Atom, other XML, KnowNow JSobj, and perhaps adding AMF to the mix sometime in the future too.
It’s nice to see the endorsement from Adobe for the benefits of a standards-based browser RIA driven by “server push” publish/subscribe services. Adobe should be applauded for publishing the spec for AMF as well. For more commentary about our viewpoint on this matter, see our viewpoint on our company blog.
How about database webserving?
-DK
http://www.QMetry.com | Test Management tool
Sillion Valley