The Dynamic Scripting technology runs in a JVM (just as it does in WebSphere sMash), but the new aspect is that we’re using the new JVMServers in V4.1. These vastly improve the concurrent capacity for JVMs in CICS (into the *hundreds* of concurrent tasks executing Java – zAAP-eligible and on OTE TCBs) by employing multiple threads in the JVM. (This is in contrast to the JVM pool model which isolates each task into its own JVM, which is a more memory-demanding option.)

I think we’ve achieved a really good combination of bringing a really modern environment to CICS, but building on all the best practises that makes CICS such a safe, secure, scalable and adaptable environment.

Ian J Mitchell, IBM Distinguished Engineer – CICS Portfolio Architect, IBM Hursley.

Let me go in reverse order:

2. In regards to the communications paradigm: This probably isn’t the right forum for a prolonged architectural discussion, but in general you’re correct, John. DDS is about peer-to-peer data-centric distribution, not about a store-and-forward message passig. I think this gets back to the distinction Thorlin originally made between message-oriented vs. data-oriented communication, which does have implications for where your state gets maintained.

1. In regards to patents: The OMG requires any implementers participating in its process (including RTI, PrismTech, and others) to provide fair and and non-discriminatory terms to all users as well as to all other implementers for any relevant patents they may have. Speaking from pure self interest: creating and implementing standards is expensive and time consuming. The vendors who work on OMG specifications do so to increase the size of the ecosystem in which our products play. We *want* people to implement those specifications! It would be completely self-sabotaging if after, say, creating the specification for DDS interoperability we then acted to prevent anyone from interoperating with us.

1. In regards to DDS implementations and their business models: I can’t say what you found four or five years ago, John, but I’m happy to say that today there are a number of DDS implementations available under a variety of free and commercial licenses. See http://www.omgwiki.org/dds/category/web-links/vendors for an incomplete list. The open-source implementations differ in the sizes and cultures of their respective communities, and the closed-source implementations differ in whether and how they provide source and the level of support they offer. Each DDS user can decide what makes sense for them.

Regards,
- Rick

Ken Prather, Teilhard CEO, was interviewed as part of the article research, which seems to confirm these statements as fact.

Of course, there may well be more dividends to follow, but at this stage this would suggest that perhaps the agreed settlements are not going to bankrupt IBM, Microsoft and SAP after all.

@Thorlin. I looked at DDS before embarking on AMQP (I also looked at a ton of other protocol; I really didn’t want to do this *again*!). I also looked at XMPP, and many others.

Two things:
1) DDS appeared, at the time, to be a mysteriously encumbered. There was one commercial implementation, no open ones, and dark hints at patented technologies around the DDS spec which the OMG licensing permits. I see just this year PrismTech has done something open source; but 4 years after I started looking….. and LGPL may or may not say anything about patents.
2) DDS appears to be more about event propagation and less about store-and-forward. The bias in AMQP is the other way around – it’s pretty state heavy.

I like DDS, if the protocol had been genuinely unencumbered it was a contender. But this was not the business model of its sponsors at the time.

Have you noticed in AMQP that every company contributing has already granted all necessary patent rights they hold to other users and implementors? Even IPR-heavy firms like Cisco, Novell and Microsoft.

Best regards
John

None of that applies in this case, though. As I’ve written about on my own site (see http://pl.atyp.us/wordpress/?p=2572), the ideas in Prust’s patents were at the very least obvious and might even have been present in publicly available implementations – all at the time of filing, not just when the patents were granted. I’m practically certain that there’s abundant prior art to invalidate all three, if only somebody would track down the people from now-failed dot-com companies that were involved.