Re: [Embedlets-dev] Interested in sharing a J2EE perspective

[Gregg G. W. <gr...@sk...>]

>What kinds of designs can automatically handle these dynamic load changes?  
How
>can thousands of dynamically-connected Enterprise Outposts be managed by
>existing IT personnel?  How can Enterprise Outposts be configured and deployed
>by existing IT personnel without the help of the Java developers who designed
>them?
>
>These are the bigger-picture problems that keep some of us nights ;-)

We've had no problem with this issue as long as we've kept the configuration 
nightmare out of the way.  As I've stated here before, we designed our 
container architecture before J2EE existed, and we avoided configuration for 
everything, by designing systems that adapt, or discover.  We've added 100's 
of devices into systems day and night with zero impact to the existing 
devices.  The systems don't have per device configuration, or automatically 
recognize and configure the system for the new devices if device specific 
configuration is needed.  We haven't used the Jini Surrogate stuff yet, but 
some of the things that we do are similar to the that solution space.  
Eliminatination of IP address configuration is one thing that must be dealt 
with in large scale network deployments. Many small network devices don't 
implement DHCP because of code footprint, or because of the thought that fixed 
IP addresses provide some kind of security :-( The configuration of such 
devices network parameters can be made simple, but it is still an 
administrative step...

Out status monitoring software automatically creates new standard views for 
new devices. As soon as a new device is sending traffic in the system, you can 
search for a device by id and get a list of views to look at.  We typically 
have a status related view that shows communications and general health data, 
and a current 'values' view that shows the data that is important to the 
enterprise.

In our largest system, we have 6000+ views, most of which are generated 
automatically.  Everyone doesn't need to see all of these views.  Views are 
placed into view groups which are assigned access by user groups. Users of the 
system are placed into user groups administratively based on responsibilities.

At these kinds of scales, automation of configuration, or the elimination of it
is a must!

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gr...@cy...  (Cyte Technologies Inc)