Open Source Integration with Apache Camel and How Fuse IDE Can Help

I've been meaning for a while to update an old but popular article I wrote about using Apache Camel. People are still reading it but the Camel version is 1.6 IIRC - we're current thinking of releasing 2.8 so Camel 1.6 is quite dated.

I also wanted to load up that example in some cool Camel GUI tooling that James created at FuseSource.

The new article is Open Source Integration with Apache Camel and How Fuse IDE Can Help. Check it out and let me know what you think!

Speaking at CamelOne and Security BSides

I'm heading out to do a couple of talks on Apache Camel in the coming months and figured I should get the word out! First off, is CamelOne:

CamelOne - May 24-26

So I'm really excited about CamelOne. It is a conference put off by FuseSource for users of Apache open source integration and messaging projects. So there will be lots of talks on Apache Camel, ServiceMix, ActiveMQ and CXF by the folks who created those projects and also users who push the limits of what the software can do. Great stuff.

Gregor Hohpe, author of Enterprise Integration Patterns, will also be giving a keynote about the Past, Present and Future of Enterprise Integration Patterns.

Given most of the time I see folks running Camel applications on top of ServiceMix or Karaf, I will be giving a talk entitled: Getting the most out of your ServiceMix deployment of Camel. A brief description of the talk:

Apache Camel was designed to be deployable nearly anywhere; you have your choice of standalone in a JVM, Tomcat, J2EE, ActiveMQ, Spring, OSGi, and more. One particularly suitable deployment option is an OSGi container like Apache ServiceMix. In this session, Jon will show you how to take advantage of the many features that ServiceMix brings to the table and also how to best design your Camel applications to get the most out of OSGi.

I urge anyone who uses Camel, ServiceMix, ActiveMQ or CXF and can afford the trip to attend CamelOne. It's going to be a blast and it would really be great to chat with fellow community members about these projects.

Security BSides - June 10

Security BSides is an "unconference" style gathering here in St. John's. A brief description from the official site:

An eclectic gathering of infosec people to hear awesome talks and have outrageously fun discussions! Our mission is to provide an inclusive, open environment for the sharing and collaborative discourse on topics that most interest you.

I'm going be giving a talk on How to Secure your Apache Camel Deployment. A brief abstract of the talk:

Apache Camel is an open source Java framework that focuses on making integration easier and more accessible to developers. It does this by providing: concrete implementations of all the widely used Enterprise Integration Patterns (EIPs), connectivity to a great variety of transports and APIs, and an easy to use Domain Specific Language (DSL) to wire EIPs and transports together to form routes.

Interacting with secure services and also hosting secure services is essential in most integration projects. In this session, Jon will go over the four categories of security features in Camel, which include securing: routes, message payload, endpoints, and configuration.

If you are in the area, please drop by - also, registration is free :)

Team Programming Competition Results

On Friday I sponsored a team programming competition at Memorial University here in St. John's. Like the previous competition this year, I presented a signed copy of Camel in Action to each of the 1st place winners. Congratulations to Melissa Reid and Ken Collingwood for winning!

Full results of the competition were posted on Jamie's blog.

Programming Competitions on the Rock

This past Friday I sponsored a programming competition at Memorial University here in St. John's. Was a great turn out - much more than I can remember back in the day when I competed in these things... Jamie posted the full results since he helped organize the event.

On behalf of FuseSource I presented a prize to the 1st place winner, Robert Robere. Robert, of course, won a signed copy of Camel in Action - what else? :)

Looking forward to the next one in 3 weeks!

Seminar on Time Series Novelty Detection

Just got this email in my inbox, feel free to stop by and see my talk. There is no mention of middleware or opensource I promise :)

GRADUATE STUDENT SEMINAR

JONATHAN S. ANSTEY
WILL GIVE A TALK ON

“TIME SERIES NOVELTY DETECTION WITH APPLICATION TO PRODUCTION SENSOR SYSTEMS”

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 19, 2010
9:00 A.M.
EN-4002

MR. ANSTEY IS A GRADUATE STUDENT
IN THE M.ENG. PROGRAM
UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF DR. D. PETERS

ALL INTERESTED ARE WELCOME

I'm not sure either why this is all in CAPS :) For those interested, the full abstract of the work is:

Modern fiber manufacturing plants rely heavily on the use of automation. Automated facilities use sensors to measure fiber state and react to data patterns, which correspond to physical events. Many patterns can be predefined either by careful analysis or by domain experts. Instances of these patterns can then be discovered through techniques such as pattern recognition. However, pattern recognition will fail to detect events that have not been predefined, potentially causing expensive production errors. A solution to this dilemma, novelty detection, allows for the identification of interesting data patterns embedded in otherwise normal data. In this thesis we investigate some of the aspects of implementing novelty detection in a fiber manufacturing system. Specifically, we empirically evaluate the effectiveness of currently available feature extraction and novelty detection techniques on data from a real fiber manufacturing system.

Our results show that piecewise linear approximation (PLA) methods produce the highest quality features for fiber property datasets. Motivated by this fact, we introduced a new PLA algorithm called improved bottom up segmentation (IBUS). This new algorithm produced the highest quality features and considerably more data reduction than all currently available feature extraction techniques for our application.

Further empirical results from several leading time series novelty detection techniques revealed two conclusions. A simple Euclidean distance based technique is the best overall when no feature extraction is used. However, when feature extraction is used the Tarzan technique performs best.

Camel in Action is complete!

So we did it. Camel in Action is headed to the press! Time for beers and all that, but first a little blog post :)

I had to actually search through my mail to find out when I started on this project. Turns out I got involved mid September 2009 which puts the time in about 15 months. Claus started before that so his month count is higher - poor guy ;) So it was a pretty big chunk of time for both of us but not too bad for a technical book I'm told.

We set out to create something that the growing Apache Camel community needed badly - a great reference for newbies and experts alike. I'd like to think we accomplished that goal. Seems the early access readers agree too.

Thanks to all who were involved in producing this book. We had tons of very helpful reviewers, Manning staff, and even multiple foreword writers - there were a lot of people involved in creating this other than Claus or myself. Of course, we officially thanked the folks involved in the acknowledgements section so be sure to look there if you helped out :)

I have yet to see anything other than a PDF copy of the book (which should be released tomorrow) so I'm really looking forward to when the print copies start showing up in 10 days!

Also, feel free to use the "camel50" code for 50% off when ordering through http://manning.com/CamelinAction

Now its time to celebrate.

Apache Camel Webinars at FuseSource

As Claus just posted, we are doing two webinars next month on Apache Camel at FuseSource.

• September 8th - Claus will give an introduction to Apache Camel including: core concepts, EIPs, components, and the community.
• September 16th - I will go over deployment options for Camel including: embedded Java, Spring, ActiveMQ, ServiceMix (OSGi) and web app. This will include a live demonstration of deploying a Camel application in ServiceMix.

These webinars are interactive so you can ask questions to us directly. Register here and drop in, it will be an interesting show!