Sybase WorkSpace - What is it and Why?
November 8, 2005 9:32 AM
Filed Under: Eclipse and Open Source WorkSpace SOA
Sybase WorkSpace is an ISE (Integrated Service Environment), much like an IDE (Integrated Development Environment).
An ISE is an integrated set of products specifically focussed on supporting the construction of composite applications using Services on a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA).
Whereas an IDE:
"normally consist of a source code editor, a compiler and/or interpreter, build-automation tools, and (usually) a debugger. Sometimes a version control system and various tools to simplify the construction of a GUI are integrated as well." (Wikipedia)
Many (in fact most) ISE's are built on top of an IDE, WorkSpace is built on Eclipse and leverages many of the facilities of Eclipse and Eclipse projects such as the Platform, JDT, EMF, GEF, WTP and eventually DTP and others.
WorkSpace fits this definition because it combines a set of domain centric tools integrated to emphasise the Service Oriented nature of the product. Supported domains include Modeling, Database development, Mobile development, Web application development, Integration and Services Oriented Development of Applications. Although each of the domains are separately installable, the base infrastructure is an SOA therefore enabling all domains to participate in an SOA application supporting composition.
One of the primary design goals in designing WorkSpace was developer productivity. My firm belief is that development tools are too complex and hard to use. Microsoft is probably the closest currently to resolving this complexity, but as the scope of inclusion has widened for modern enterprise applications, complexity has returned even to Microsoft.
In order to make steps forward in the simplification of the development of complex enterprise applications, we decided that a base SOA would help streamline the infrastructure for developers regardless of the eventual application type being contructed.
SOA is often described as a panacea for all ills - I would not go this far, but the harmonization of an underlying framework to support many different data sources, providers and consumers does in fact help make enterprise software development more straightforward. Note that I dont say ALL software development. There will always be application types (device drivers for example) that cannot (currently) be helped by an SOA.
The approach that I wanted to take in WorkSpace was to focus on the simplification of the design and development of the Service and Service interface, to simplify the creation and definition of packages and the eventual deployment to target runtime systems as well as enabling a drag 'n' drop service consumer model.
In my view, the most daunting part of building Services is the inherent complexity of WSDL, XSD, WS-*, Bindings, Endpoints etc etc. The terminology is one thing, the exposure of this complex terminology as complex technology is another - most SODA tools do very little to hide this and assume that developers are willing to put up with it. WorkSpace takes a step in the direction of representing this miriade of technology in a manner that is (hopefully) sensitive to the developer.
In my next post I will dig into some of the tools that are implemented in WorkSpace to help developers with Service creation.
Posted by Karl Reti on November 8, 2005 9:32 AM
