2009 was a difficult year for the economy and our industry, and here at developerWorks, we tried to focus, like many of you, on improving our skills and work products, and doing more for our customers. But we still found time for innovation, such as converting our entire content library (more than 11,000 files) to a new, more dynamic article template, and launching My developerWorks, a Web 2.0 enabled networking site for developers and other IT experts. (Sign up now if you haven't already done so!) In September, we celebrated developerWorks' 10th birthday, and reviewed how software development and developerWorks have evolved over the past 10 years.

Of course, the heart of developerWorks is our content, so from the editors of the WebSphere section of developerWorks, here (in no particular order) are 15 of the most popular WebSphere-related articles that we published in 2009. And with that, our team wishes you and your families all the best in 2010!!

• Comment lines: SOA lessons learned for Web 2.0
  Kyle Brown and Rachel Reinitz
  Two experienced IBM SOA architects present five best practices to help you include Ajax, REST, and other Web 2.0 technologies in your SOA.
  
  
• Comment lines: The best ideas are the simple ones
  Doug Phillips
  If you want to create something that everyone will use, then make it simple enough for everyone to use. Some classic examples show why simple is better.
  
  
• The Support Authority: Know what your Web application is really doing
  Helen Beeken, Toby Corbin, Holly Cummins, and Russell Wright
  The IBM Monitoring and Diagnostic Tools for Java Health Center provide live information and recommendations on your application and its environment.
  
  
• Recommended reading list: Java EE and WebSphere Application Server
  Sree Anand Ratnasinghe
  Of the thousands of articles on the developerWorks WebSphere site, this reading list has been among the top five most popular for years. We recently updated it for WebSphere Application Server V7.
  
  
• Cloud computing for the enterprise
  Dustin Amrhein and Scott Quint
  Cloud computing is being rapidly adopted at the enterprise level, yet many experts still have questions about this new technology. This three-part series provides a technical introduction to cloud computing.
  • Part 1 gives an overview of cloud computing and its software layers, describes the different cloud types and their advantages and disadvantages, and explains why this architecture is so important for enterprise developers.
  • Part 2 looks at the public cloud and how you can use the Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) for WebSphere sMash and DB2 Express-C to deliver Web applications hosted on the Amazon public cloud infrastructure.
  • Part 3 describes WebSphere CloudBurst and WebSphere Application Server Hypervisor Edition, and shows how they bring the advantages of private cloud computing to WebSphere enterprise environments.
• Automating the construction of application environments with WebSphere CloudBurst and Rational Build Forge
  Dustin Amrhein, David Brauneis, Ruth Willenborg, and Leigh Williamson
  Combine WebSphere CloudBurst with Rational Build Forge for an unmatched, automated process for deploying applications and creating application environments.
  
  
• How to measure employee carbon footprints
  Hicham Badawi
  This two-part article series describes an IBM project to track employees' carbon footprints, using an SOA solution with WebSphere Business Monitor, WebSphere ESB, WebSphere Integration Developer, and WebSphere Process Server.
  • Part 1 describes the SOA implementation architecture.
  • Part 2 examines measurements of employee behavior based on the implementation in Part 1.
• Tuning WebSphere Application Server V7 for performance
  Christopher Blythe and David Hare
  A comprehensive performance tuning exercise using the Apache DayTrader Performance Benchmark application.
  
  
• Migrating from JBoss to WebSphere Application Server Community Edition
  Ashish Jain
  Leverage the superior support and architecture of WebSphere Application Server and Apache Geronimo by migrating applications running on JBoss Application Server.
  
  
• IBM Pattern-based Process Model Accelerators for WebSphere Business Modeler Cedric Favre, Thomas Gschwind, Wolfgang Kleinoeder, Jana Koehler, Alexander Maystrenko, Krenar Muhidini, and Janette Wong
  This four-part series describes IBM Pattern-based Process Model Accelerators, which are a set of plug-ins that add patterns, transformations, and refactorings to your business process modeling environment.
  • Part 1 shows you how to compose your business process model by instantiating predefined patterns, and how to apply complex changes to your model with a single click by invoking a transformation or refactoring.
  • Part 2 shows you how to configure the Accelerators palette, and how to apply patterns for business items and business item states to create pattern-based process models with data flow.
  • Part 3 describes transformations that apply a complex change to a process model in a single click.
  • Part 4 describes the refactorings provided with the accelerators, and how they can help you easily improve your business models without changing their behavior.
• What's new in WebSphere Enterprise Service Bus V6.2
  Brian Hulse, Callum Jackson, and Amanda Watkinson
  This three-part series describes new and enhanced features in WebSphere ESB V6.2 and its associated tooling, WebSphere Integration Developer.
  • Part 1 provides a product overview, including transport protocol bindings, data binding capabilities, mediation primitives, and declarative flow control.
  • Part 2 describes the Service Gateway and Service Policy features.
  • Part 3 describes dynamic configuration of mediation flows using mediation policy, including creating, storing, and using a mediation policy to dynamically configure a mediation flow.
• What's new in WebSphere Message Broker V7
  Matt Lucas
  WebSphere Message Broker V7 provides universal connectivity with its ability to route and transform messages from anywhere to anywhere. Through its simple programming model and a powerful operational management interface, it makes complex application integration solutions much easier to develop, deploy, and maintain. This article describes the major enhancements in V7.
  
  
• New security APIs in WebSphere Portal
  Jan-Paul Buchwald and Matthias Falkenberg
  This article provides usage scenarios, guidelines, and samples for three new security APIs: the "portlet login" service, the "remember me cookie" portlet service, and the "authentication filter" model.
  
  
• Comment lines: An update on Java Persistence API 2.0
  Kevin Sutter
  Here's a preview of the new JPA specification, what it is expected to provide, and how you can help evaluate it.
  
  
• Hello again, 3270: Accessing mainframe applications with an iPhone
  Reginaldo Barosa
  The future is here -- but so are the mainframe systems that have served us so well over the years. Bridge the gap between today's handheld devices and corporate mainframe applications.
  
  

Resources

Learn

• developerWorks WebSphere zone
  developerWorks WebSphere provides product downloads, how-to information, support resources, and a free technical library of more than 2000 technical articles, tutorials, best practices, IBM Redbooks, and online product manuals. Whether you're a beginner, an expert, or somewhere in between, you'll find what you need to build enterprise-scale SOA solutions using the open-standards-based WebSphere software platform.
  
  
• developerWorks WebSphere application connectivity developer resources
  How-to articles, downloads, tutorials, education, product info, and other resources to help you build WebSphere application connectivity and business integration solutions.
  
  
• developerWorks WebSphere business process management developer resources
  WebSphere BPM how-to articles, downloads, tutorials, education, product info, and other resources to help you model, assemble, deploy, and manage business processes.
  
  
• developerWorks WebSphere SOA and Web services developer resources
  How-to articles, downloads, tutorials, education, product info, and other resources to help you design and build WebSphere SOA and Web services solutions.
  
  
• developerWorks technical events and Webcasts
  Free technical sessions by IBM experts that can accelerate your learning curve and help you succeed in your most difficult software projects. Sessions range from one-hour Webcasts to half-day and full-day live sessions in cities worldwide.
  
  
• WebSphere-related events
  Conferences, trade shows, Webcasts, and other events around the world of interest to WebSphere developers.
  
  
• WebSphere-related books from IBM Press
  Convenient online ordering through Barnes & Noble.
  
  
• developerWorks podcasts
  Listen to interesting and offbeat interviews and discussions with software innovators.
  
  

Get products and technologies

• WebSphere on-demand demos
  Download, watch, and learn what WebSphere products and WebSphere-related technologies can do for your company.
  
  
• Most popular WebSphere trial downloads
  No-charge trial downloads for key WebSphere products.
  
  
• Trial downloads for IBM software products
  No-charge trial downloads for selected IBM® DB2®, Lotus®, Rational®, Tivoli®, and WebSphere® products.
  
  

Discuss

• WebSphere forums
  Product-specific forums where you can get answers to your technical questions and share your expertise with other WebSphere users.
  
  
• developerWorks blogs
  Join a conversation with developerWorks users and authors, and IBM editors and developers.
  
  
• developerWorks on Twitter
  Check out recent Twitter messages and URLs.
  
  

About the author

Jim Ramaker is the Managing Editor of the developerWorks WebSphere Web site team at IBM Silicon Valley Lab in San Jose, CA. He is an editor for the following WebSphere products: WebSphere Enterprise Service Bus, WebSphere Message Broker, WebSphere MQ, and WebSphere DataPower SOA Appliances. You can contact Jim at ramaker@us.ibm.com.

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