Mobile technology has so far mostly been confined to the client side, for fairly obvious reasons - traditionally, clients are mobile, and servers are not. However, not only is hardware getting smaller, servers are too. When your application server can run on pocket-sized £25 hardware it opens up some pretty cool possibilities - your server is literally lightweight. Not only can you have location-based services, you can have locatable servers. Servers can run on phones, they can run on the Raspberry Pi, and so they can go almost anywhere you can think of. Modularity gives software the flexibility it needs to cram into these tight spaces without sacrificing power. This talk will demonstrate developing and deploying a web application to an instance of WebSphere Application Server embedded in a comedy hat.

1. The Wearable
Application Server
Holly Cummins
cumminsh@uk.ibm.com
@holly_cummins
© 2009 IBM Corporation

2. “Computers in the future may weigh
no more than 1.5 tons.”
Popular Mechanics,
1949
© 2012 IBM Corporation

3. “I think there is a world market for
maybe five computers.”
Thomas Watson
chairman of IBM
1943
© 2012 IBM Corporation

4. Then: HARDware
© 2012 IBM Corporation

5. Now: Everyware
© 2012 IBM Corporation

6. “If your background is in the
programming of PCs or even more
powerful computers, a fair warning:
embedded programming for low-cost
devices means working with very
limited resources ...”
© 2012 IBM Corporation

7. “... This is in shocking contrast with
the World Wide Web, where
technologies usually seem to be
created with utmost inefficiency as a
goal...”
© 2012 IBM Corporation

8. “... Embedded programming requires
more careful consideration of how
resources are used than what is needed
for PCs or servers...”
© 2012 IBM Corporation

9. “... Embedded platforms only provide
small sub- sets of the functionality of
their larger cousins, which may require
some inventiveness and work where a
desired feature is not available
directly.”
© 2012 IBM Corporation

10. June, 2011
© 2012 IBM Corporation

11. Spot the difference
■ Netduino Plus ■ Raspberry Pi
© 2012 IBM Corporation

12. Spot the difference
■ Application server, circa ■ Application server, circa
2010 2012
© 2012 IBM Corporation

13. What's it good for?
© 2012 IBM Corporation

14. What's it good for? (ii)
© 2012 IBM Corporation

15. Ubiquitous computing++
© 2012 IBM Corporation

16. Old new-world
■ Mobile technology a trend only on the client-side
■ Why?
■ Clients are mobile
■ Servers are not mobile
–Obviously
© 2012 IBM Corporation

17. New new-world
■ Servers are lightweight
■ Seriously - they literally don't weigh much
■ Move from location-based services to locate-able
services
© 2012 IBM Corporation

18. WAS Liberty Profile
■ New in WebSphere Application Server 8.5
■ Free for developers
■ Free tools
■ Very very lightweight
–50 MB download
–Starts in under 5s
■ Entirely modular and dynamic
© 2012 IBM Corporation

19. Where can WebSphere Liberty profile go?
Nexus 7 tablet
Asus Transformer
© 2012 IBM Corporation

20. Where can WebSphere Liberty profile go?
Old Android phone
© 2012 IBM Corporation

21. Where can WebSphere Liberty profile go?
Raspberry Pi
© 2012 IBM Corporation

22. Introducing the Raspberry Pi
■ £25
■ £25!
■ 1.6 oz
■ 700 MHz ARM 11 processor
■ 256 MB RAM (shared with GPU)
■ Up to 4 GB SanDisk
© 2012 IBM Corporation

23. WebSphere and the Cloud
Density
Elasticity
■ Small kernel
■ 50 MB download ■ Dynamically enable and
disable features
■ 60 MB memory footprint
for biggish JEE app ■ Zip up server image
–Apps
–Configuration
© 2012 IBM Corporation

24. Modularity and dynamism
© 2012 IBM Corporation

25. WebSphere and Developers
■ Fast startup No restarts!
■ Easy download
–Download tools from Eclipse Marketplace
• Tools can download server
–Or just download server from wasdev.net
■ Nice tools
■ Lovely config
–Convention over configuration
–Simple to store in version control
–Re-usable snippets can be imported
–Common configuration can be stored at URL © 2012 IBM Corporation

26. Yes, but what about the hat?
■ And why on earth would you want to do that?
■ 'True' location-based service
–Expose services to users in vicinity of server
© 2012 IBM Corporation

27. Demo-time
© 2012 IBM Corporation

28. Any questions?
www.wasdev.net
© 2012 IBM Corporation