RIA Integration for .NET and Java Using WebORB Community Edition

Coders seeking to connect their clients built in Flex, Flash, Ajax and Silverlight to .NET, Java, PHP and Rails often have questions about WebORB Community Edition, such as: What is it? Where can I find it? How does it stack up against Enterprise Edition? What are the limitations? How is it licensed? This post will hopefully answer these questions and make it easier for coders to find Community Edition.

What is Community Edition?

Community Edition is a free version of WebORB for .NET and WebORB for Java (WebORB for PHP and WebORB for Rails are free open-source products) that allows you to not only connect your clients built in Flex, Flash, AJAX and Silverlight to either .NET or Java backends, but it also supports most of the functionality you find in Enterprise Edition, such as streaming media, data management, real-time messaging and developer productivity tools.


What are the Limitations with Community Edition?

Community Edition does not support clustering or running in an environment where there are multiple licensed WebORB products. (You'd want Enterprise Edition for those use cases.) Also, if you have a .NET environment, IIS is required to run Community Edition.

Is Community Edition the product I download from your website?

Yes and no. The product you download from our website is the Enterprise Edition running in "development mode". Development mode is FREE, but limits IP connections to the WebORB server to 5 IP addresses and requires IIS if it is WebORB for .NET. When you activate your Community Edition license key through the licensing tab in the WebORB console, the activation process configures WebORB to run as Community Edition, removing the 5 IP address limitation, but restricting deployment to one server.

How is Community Edition licensed?

We allow one free Community Edition license per company, which is appropriate for running a single instance of WebORB for .NET or WebORB for Java on one server running up to 8 processor cores with unlimited IP connections.

Where can I find Community Edition?

You can apply for a free Community Edition license here: http://tinyurl.com/yk7xoy6 All we ask is that you help us a little bit with spreading the word about WebORB, which is why we ask for some publishable information from you.

Was this post helpful? Please post any additional questions you might have regarding Community Edition to this blog.

WebORB Updates & New Release

We just announced in our Midnight Coders Monthly Newsletter that we will be releasing Version 4 of WebORB for .NET and WebORB for Java at the end of the month. These will be beta releases and will include many new productivity features that will help developers code faster, easier and reduce overall project cost (bosses and customers will be happy about that).

The following is what is new in version 4.0 for WebORB for .NET and WebORB for Java.

• integration with Data Modeler in Flash Builder v.4
• pluggable user-defined code generators
• updated code generator for Cairngorm and PureMVC
• new code generators for Mate and Swiz frameworks
• all code generators support auto-creation of Flex Builder project files
• support for .NET RIA Services (experimental feature) (WebORB for .NET only)
• pluggable user-defined service browsers for the Management Console
• service browser for XML/SOAP web services
• service browser for WCF services
• support for AMF behavior for WCF services
• support for client/server property renaming via .NET attributes and Java annotations
• improved code generation to support multiple namespaces and class hierarchies
• support for IExternalizable (WebORB for Java only)

Version 4 Beta will be available end of month. Customers that have purchased WebORB Enterprise Edition will need to contact their account manager to receive a new license key for version 4. (Must have an active support plan.)

AMF vs. Web Services Wins Again!

We've updated our AMF vs Web Services benchmark test and posted it on our website. If you are interested in giving this a try in your own environment, client and server source code is provided. Just go to this link:

http://bit.ly/bYEGNK

Have fun!

We're Evolving and Want Your Input

Hi All,

It has been far too long that I've posted on this blog, so I'm shifting gears and putting on my Marketing Hat to see what we can do together to foster greater community amongst users of our products and services. Some of the things we'd like to have your feedback on are:

• Forum Activity - with nearly 4000 members, we're still wondering if the Yahoo discussion forum is helpful or if we should we use some other forum to foster greater participation from the community.
• Contributions from the Community - Your contributions are valued tremendously. These contributions come in the form of documentation, examples, tutorials, translations, webinars, and workshops.
  
• Hackatons (thanks MaTias Barletta for that idea) - this could be great fun and a great way to promote charitable community projects.
  
• Beta Software - Do you like to beta test and what would be your expectations as a beta tester?
• Word on the Street - Your blog, Twitter and website links back to our site are very much appreciated. When you do these things make sure we know.
  
• Anything Else you think we should consider to foster better community.
  

Last but certainly not least, we'd like to understand what motivates (or would motivate) you to blog, twitter and contribute otherwise to fostering a better community. Please reach out to me via 214.550.0177 or email kathleen@themidnightcoders.com. Your time and input would be very much appreciated!

Cheers,
Kathleen Erickson