- Past, Present and Future of OFBiz
- Short History of OFBiz
- Conceived 13 May 2001, will be 6 years old the Sunday after JavaOne
- First 6 Months: layout framework objectives, application base structure including initial universal data model
- Next 3 Years: iterative simultaneous development and refinement of framework tools and application artifacts
- Last 2.5 Years: after initial completion/stabilization of framework, huge refactoring of existing artifacts and build out of base enterprise application artifacts
- Became a Top Level Project at the Apache Software Foundation in December 2006 after 11 months of incubation
- The Next 6 Years
- First Year: Complete build out of enterprise applications for OOTB use by a wide variety of organizations
- In 2 Years: the market leader for medium and large scale retail applications (ecommerce and POS)
- In 4 Years: more installed ERP seats than SAP and more CRM seats than Siebel and SalesForce.com
- In 6 Years: 20% of global economic activity managed with OFBiz
- How Do We Get There?
- Community-driven, non-profit, open source project
- Open source based companies offering services, products, etc
- Customized solution end-users (medium to large sized companies)
- Commercial derivative works, specific to a certain type of business (small to medium sized companies)
- OFBiz community currently mostly service providers, like the presenters who are from two competing and cooperating companies
- Open Source Resource Model
- Community-driven, non-profit, open source model is the most efficient and scalable collaboration model, period
- An idea and needs based collaboration model that is an alternative to the money based collaboration model
- We don‘t believe for-profit open source companies exist, just community-driven non-profit open source projects and commercial software products some of which use open source licenses, usually GPL or HPL to encourage users to purchase a commercial license while still being able call their product "open source", but that are developed and maintained by a paid staff more than by a community of users; this model has limited scalability and will have trouble competing with both community-driven open source projects and totally commercial products
- Commercial and Open Source Boundaries
- Q: Why commercial derivative works at all? Why not just open source?
- A: The open source model is a great way to collaborate among people with similar needs, but there are certain industries made of mostly smaller companies that cannot afford a custom solution but if enough of them pool financially and if the solution for them is based on OFBiz and managed completely by the provider then a model emerges that benefits both end-user and provider, and that still increases the contributing community of the open source project.
- Q: Why would anyone want to contribute to the open source project?
- A: Enlightened self interest. Not everyone realizes it right away, but maintaining enterprise software is extremely expensive. If a company can reduce costs for things they need but that are not differentiating, they can focus their development and maintenance budgets on things that make a difference in their market. Participating in the open source project is an opportunity for a large group of companies to do just that.
- OFBiz Framework Differentiators
- Enterprise Grade Design, 4GL-like Efficiency
- Multi-Tier, Loosely Coupled, Service Oriented Architecture
- Designed and Developed and Refined Iteratively based on years of actual implementation and maintenance efforts
- Ability to use and mix high level and low level technologies
- Tools designed for specific uses
- Widgets for common applications elements: screens, forms, menus, trees
- Special "mini language" for data validation, mapping, etc intensive logic (most of what goes into business applications)
- Easy support to plug in artifacts written using low level tools and languages (template engines, scripting languages, Java code, etc)
- Artifact Reference Diagram - Framework Tool Relationships
- Technology Flexibility
- Based on Java
- Support for multiple technologies in JVM, not locked into anything
- Support for external front end communicating via SOAP, other RPC
- Logic Layer
- Service Oriented Architecture, rather than Object Oriented
- Enables applications logic written in a service-oriented way, and not just wrapped in service mapping code
- Service calls location and implementation agnostic, just care about input and output in calling code
- Easy interaction with enterprise service bus, and other service-based systems and system-wrappers
- Synchronous, Asynchronous, Scheduled Services with Job Manager
- Business Event system with ECA (event-condition-action) rules
- Data Layer
- Use relational data model and patterns top to bottom
- No Object-Relational mapping, eliminates significant redundant code
- Meta-data driven database interaction
- creation and maintenance of physical database
- SQL generation for queries and updates
- Database interactions transparent making design and optimization natural
- Example: Add a New Field
- Add field to entity definition (framework/example/entitydef/entitymodel.xml)
- No change in service definition (framework/example/servicedef/services.xml)
- No change in form definition required (framework/example/widget/example/ExampleForms.xml)
- Can easily add drop-down, lookup window, etc in form definition
- Logic and Process Practices
- Service Composition (high level services based on low level services)
- High Level Process Management with SECA Rules
- Defined independent of system services, trigger on business event
- When Shipment Packed, Complete and Invoice Order
- Custom add on: When order completed for product X send order information to external system
- Custom add on: When task completed by person in a work group, send notification email to manager(s) of the group
- Scheduled Services: data cleanup, warehousing; place automated orders; check late tasks
- OFBiz OOTB Business Application (Infrastructure, and Ready To Use)
- All applications based on common universal data model
- Initial data model and data structure concepts based on The Data Model Resource Book, Revised Edition, Volumes 1 and 2 by Len Silverston
- Base data, logic and user interfaces usable out of the box, but all designed and written to be customized and extended as needed for end users
- Both tools and applications designed and written and used by consultants and end-users who create and maintain customizations and extensions
- Can created derived application with little duplication of artifacts using inherit and override mechanisms available throughout the framework (makes it much easier to keep up to date with and collaborate with others in the open source project and community)
- Low risk: with no licensing can get full access and dedicate resources into learning about the applications and making a decision
- Low Cost: both cheaper initially and to customize and maintain over time with completely open design and code, and a services market with no anti-competitive or artificial factors
- Build vs. Buy, now with alternative of OFBiz
- High Level Customizations
- Derived Applications
- Use include element in controller config (applications/ecommerce/webapp/ecomclone/WEB-INF/controller.xml)
- Override and add view-map and request-map elements as needed in controller.xml
- Add new decorator screen, override in web.xml file context variable
- Reuse data prep scripts, templates; inherit/override form definitions
- Custom services, input processing scripts (applications/ecommerce/script/org/ofbiz/ecommerce/customer/CustomerEvents.xml)
- Common Pattern: simple-map-processor, check-errors, call-service
- Well Known OFBiz Users
- Brainfood clients
- United Airlines: Ameniti and Silver Wings Plus travel club sites (production), other efforts in progress
- British Telecom: huge ecommerce project in progress for over a year, should be in production by JavaOne
- Snaidero Group (need details from Jacopo)
- others?
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