eXo JCR 1.12 is out

This week we have released a next step of eXoJCR evolution.

What is new and major in version 1.12?

First of all eXoJCR it's an open-source implementation of JCR specification (JSR-170) and now it's under LGPL license (was AGPL). LGPL means freedom for use in closed (commercial, private etc) projects. Doing this step we want to get more feedback about JCR technology in real world usecases. At other hand lesser license opens us an opportunity to work with many JBoss teams and especially with Portal guys. GateIn portal it's a web face of a Content Repositories actually... as well as many other tasty features :).

But eXoJCR 1.12 is very interesting technically also.

Our new, big and #1 feature today - clustering.

It's not a very new option and we had a replication in 1.11. But it was designed for data synchronization between sites over Internet in on-line peer-to-peer mode (available since version 1.10). And then used by several our customers for a clustering in Intranet solutions. We gathered lot of feedback and real usecases and decided to re-implement it from the scratch in 1.12.

The new clustering goals mean intensively loaded Repository work in corporate network or a cloud. At same time a main look made on read operations scalability what is general for Web applications.
Technically the new cluster uses the same JGroups transport well known to us by 1.11 replication (and still used in asynchronous replication). But now the clustering work fully based on JBossCache. We rely on JBoss experience in this field. And we have implemented not trivial task - hierarchical JCR data caching over the JBossCache keeping a compatibility with existing persistence. We also reimplemented JCR indexer and locks support on JBossCache.
A complex work done and we're on a next iteration there.

Other main features of eXoJCR 1.12.0-GA since 1.11.2
- Lazy-load option for child nodes and properties read, improved items
dataflow for read/write operations
- Alternative data container optimized for read operations (consuming
less database queries). It's enabled by default.
- Support of Java6 and Java5 runtimes and JDK
- Database dialect can be autodetected (if not pointed in the configuration)
- Support for Values large of 2GiB
- Portal container configuration supports default definitions,
links and externally loaded parameters
- Support of MySQL/InnoDB database for multilingual content
- Concurrency improvements for Session registry and Values storage
- Concurrency improvements for XA transactions support (Repository
login and logout are faster now)
- Improved search based on Lucene 2.4
- Standalone container can use configuration stored in JBoss application server
configuration directory by default
- WebDAV server update-policy can be configured to different
versioning behaviour
- Two new REST services introduced:
* HTTP (RESTful) Backup agent with console client
* HTTP (RESTful) Repository management service

More info about inherited features from the previous versions 1.11.2 here.

eXoJCR 1.12 was tested on databases/JDBC drivers:
MySQL 5.1 MYSQL Connector/J 5.1.8
Oracle DB 10g (10.2.0.1) Oracle 10g (10.2.0.1)
PostgresSQL 8.3.7 JDBC4 Driver, Version 8.3-605
DB2 9,7 IBM Data Server Driver for JDBC and SQLJ (JCC Driver)
Version: 9.1 (fixpack 3a)
MS SQL Server 2005 SP3 JDBC Driver 2.0
MS SQL Server 2008 SP1 JDBC Driver 2.0
Sybase 15.0.2 JConnect v6.0.5 (Build 26564 / 11 Jun 2009)

Downloads of a standalone eXoJCR bundles available now.
Tomcat or EAR provides a network ready content server with several plain samples. It provides WebDAV and FTP (port 2121) services on the board.

eXoJCR 1.12.0-GA jars are on JBoss maven2 repo also.
There are short intro how to setup dev environment for eXoJCR 1.12.

Where you can see eXoJCR in action (soon):
eXoJCR 1.12 is a database of GateIn portal.
eXoJCR 1.12 also used in xCMIS - eXo's CMIS implementation.
And our services...

Lot of stuff... stay connected. Details more interesting.

Setup of development on eXoJCR 1.12

Short intro in preparations to eXo JCR development.
(repost of setup, adopted to eXoJCR 1.12)

eXo and GateIn products development based on Maven2 project management. Easiest way to start the development it's to setup right Maven2 project (POM) and its dependencies.

Prerequisites

• Java 5 (add JDK executables to the PATH on your system)
  
• Maven2 (add Maven2 2.2.1 or higher executable to the PATH on your system, )
• Eclipse (optional)

Creating project (POM)

We say that our project name is my-jcrapp (use your name instead of this dummy one).

In empty folder run Maven command:

For Java project:

mvn archetype:generate -DarchetypeGroupId=org.apache.maven.archetypes -DarchetypeArtifactId=maven-archetype-quickstart -DgroupId=com.mycompany.exojcr -DartifactId=my-jcrapp

For Groovy enabled project:

mvn archetype:generate -DarchetypeGroupId=org.codehaus.groovy.maven.archetypes -DarchetypeArtifactId=gmaven-archetype-basic -DgroupId=com.mycompany.exojcr -DartifactId=my-jcrapp

The commend ask for a project version Define value for version: 1.0-SNAPSHOT: :
Press Enter or type your version, it then ask for confirmation - press Enter to agree.

This command creates the project folder named my-jcrapp with ready to use files structure. There are pom.xml, src folder with place for application code and tests. Project model (pom.xml) contains dependencies declaration, here is JUnit only (and Groovy runtime if you're groovy :) ).

eXo JCR dependency

Next, add eXo JCR dependency to the POM.
eXoJCR jar files lives on JBoss Maven2 repository. Add JBoss repo to Maven2 local repositories list: or into settings.xml or directly in the your project POM (add repositories element after the dependencies).

<repositories>
<repository>
<id>exo-int</id>
<name>jboss.org repository</name>
<url>http://repository.jboss.com/maven2 </url>
<layout>default</layout>
</repository>
</repositories>

Now add the JCR core dependency:

<dependency>
<groupid>org.exoplatform.jcr</groupid>
<artifactid>exo.jcr.component.core</artifactid>
<version>1.12.0-GA</version>
<scope>compile</scope>
</dependency>

If you need JCR Ext features then add this dependency (in fact you need only Ext one, it will points JCR core itself):

<dependency>
<groupid>org.exoplatform.jcr</groupid>
<artifactid>exo.jcr.component.ext</artifactid>
<version>1.12.0-GA</version>
<scope>compile</scope>
</dependency>

And it's ready to build!

Build project

Run given command and wait till eXo JCR with its dependencies will be downloaded to your local Maven2 repo (~25Mb):

mvn clean compile

and be sure you see BUILD SUCCESSFUL at the end of this execution.

If something goes wrong with the build check all step from the begin and proxy.

Successful? Voi-la, you're ready to eXo JCR development!


Eclipse IDE setup read there.

Several notes about Groovy support in Eclipse.
I have used Groovy-Eclipse plugin of version 2.0.0 (update site). After generation from maven2 project (via mvn eclipse:eclipse) and import into Eclipse I found that Groovy-Eclipse doesn't recognize the project as a Groovy project and as a result the plugin has no sense for development.
Trouble can be fixed by Eclipse project file (.project) manual editing. Add the next line to natures element

<nature>org.eclipse.jdt.groovy.core.groovyNature</nature>

and refresh the project.
Another issue with the plugin it's switch to Groovy 1.6.x compiler. Why 1.6? eXoJCR 1.12 bundled with Groovy 1.6.5, it's better to use closer version in IDE.

Enjoy!