SOAHarbor - SOA for embedded systems

C-Engine: A performance optimized BPEL4LEGO-Engine

2011-01-06T07:57:00.007+01:00

A follow-up project of SOAHarbor, called "C-Engine", is finished.

C-Engine is a performance optimized implementation of the BPEL4LEGO standard, we defined in SOAHarbor. It uses the NXC technology instead of lejos and a compiler-based architecture instead of a runtime-interpreter.

A complete description of the C-Engine is available in german:
C-Engine_Dokumentation.pdf

To get an idea of the performance improvement, the following video clips show the same BPEL4LEGO process performed on different engines.

First, the old SOAHarbor-Engine:

and the C-Engine:

SOAHarbor TechTalk @ Capgemini Düsseldorf

2010-07-06T11:29:00.004+02:00

Hey folks,

after some newsless month we have some new footage for you: As Stephan and Tim both worked at Capgemini Düsseldorf for a couple of years, they conducted an internal talk about the SOAHarbor project for their colleagues on 02/07/2010.

As usual, we provide the slides (extracted from our final presentation) and video footage on this blog. Here you are:

[slides]

_download here_

[demo video]

Cheers

The SOAHarbor-team

ruhrjug-talk online!

2010-05-04T14:08:00.003+02:00

Our (german) ruhrjug-talk (18/02/2010) is now viewable online:

http://www.ruhrjug.de/videos/gse.lectures.app/Talk.html#SOAHarbor

SOAHarbor press review

2010-03-24T15:41:00.004+01:00

(Nordanzeiger Essen - Sat 2010/03/10)

(source: media.nrw.de)

(source: duisburgfans.de)

After the project.... how long did it take?

2010-03-18T10:53:00.002+01:00

SOAHarbor 1.0 has been delivered!

2010-03-11T10:33:00.002+01:00

We finally delivered the project's deliverables today - after nearly one year of work! If you're interested in our project documentation, check out the following link:

[download project documentation]

We did it! Our final presentation is done!

2010-02-27T00:33:00.003+01:00

Hello everyone,

we finally held our final presentation today. We were very happy about the various kinds of people visiting it: professors, research assistants (from the SSE and other chairs), computer science students, business information systems students, logistics students, project team member's partners, mothers with their kids, a LEGO expert and some representatives of the NLV (Netzwerk für Logistik und Verkehr) of our university, having big interest in further cooperations with us!

Furthermore, the press was there! One camera man from the WDR and one reporter from the Stadtspiegel Essen. We are so proud of being broadcasted in the Lokalzeit Ruhr just on the same day:

If you're interested in our presentation slides, please download them here:

[slides of the final presentation]

We'll now finish our project documentation and surely publish any newspaper articles about our project here! ;)

Cheers
The SOAHarbor team

SOAHarbor@ruhrjug

2010-02-19T01:47:00.005+01:00

Hey everyone,

today we presented our finished project at a ruhrjug event. The presentation was captured on video, but as long as it is not available yet, be patient and watch our demo video below and look into the plain slides.

[download slides here]

(if the video is unavailable _again_, you can also watch it on youtube)

Cheers
The SOAHarbor team

Presentations, Presentations... come and see!

2010-02-11T11:40:00.003+01:00

Hello everyone,

as the project is finished now, we can finally announce our (official) final presentation - open for everyone! It takes place...

february 26th, 2pm - 4pm
Room SA202 (Schützenbahn Altbau)
Schützenbahn 70
45127 Essen

In addition to that, we'll give some short project overview at the next ruhrjug event (february 18th, see ruhrjug.de for details).

Everyone is welcome to participate in these events!

See you!
The SOAHarbor-team

Sucessfully finished the acceptance test

2010-02-07T16:49:00.002+01:00

Hey all,

we're happy to announce that we successfully finished the acceptance test of the SOAHarbor project. The platform for embedded SOAs was finished at the end of the last year and so well-tested with the harbor scenario we built on top. The last changes to our NXT services were done on the last friday and so we're waiting for a date for our final presentation now.

In the meantime, we'll do some documentation work and prepare our final presentation (possibly held at the end of the month). Perhaps we'll additionally have a short presentation at the ruhrjug on the 18th of february... Stay tuned!

Cheers
Tim (for the SOAHarbor team)

Approaching reality...

2010-01-17T13:24:00.004+01:00

SOAHarbor enters SH412!

2010-01-14T11:10:00.004+01:00

Hey there,

we now finally have an official project room for SOAHarbor! Look here:

You might already have identified these paper-pieces carrying containers in the former photos. With some color and name/logo stickers, they now look like real ship/truck models:

Final presentation announce

2010-01-11T15:55:00.002+01:00

If YOU want to attend the PUBLIC final presentation of our project, please send your email address to soaharbor@googlemail.com. We'll only announce the presentation via our study course mail distribution list and the FSE forum.

So, if you're an external, please leave us a note!

Cheers
The SOAHarbor-team

We're nearly done.

2010-01-10T18:41:00.003+01:00

Unfortunately, we had some bad bluetooth connectivity problems in the last days. After switching back to Windows for the control unit of the NXTs, everything works fine. But we still have to check and correct some of our BPEL4LEGO processes.

Since the 26c3, we were happy to be able to work in the LUDI room and store the harbor in the FSE room. For the upcoming weeks of project finishing and all planned presentation, we can now work in a dedicated project room. Thanks to Christian Derksen and Prof Echtle for the offer! :)

Stay tuned, the final presentation will be announced in a few days ;)

Hello World! - Working at the 26c3

2009-12-30T13:10:00.003+01:00

Our gift for you: the fist version of the DispatchCargoProcess

2009-12-24T00:17:00.003+01:00

The DispatchCargoProcess is the central process on "business level" orchestrating all activities required on an arrived carrier. The current version does only have "dummy" activities for the NXT calls and only collects all needed data for printing the "Bill of Lading" (which is, if you don't know yet, _really_ printed! ;)).

So that's enough for today. The SOAHarbor-team will now enjoy the christmas days without NXTs, ESBs and wooden harbors... we'll be back for the 26c3 (see post below!) -

Merry christmas
The SOAHarbor-Team

StockRobot working!

2009-12-23T16:27:00.002+01:00

We're proud to tell you that our stock robot is now able to move packets from one stock position to another. Watch him:

SOAHARBOR @ 26c3

2009-12-22T18:15:00.002+01:00

As we already posted, we'll be "exhibitors" at the 26th Chaos Communication Congress event in Essen. - BUT _ONLY_ on the 29th and 30th december!

We're looking forward to see you there!

Updated TechnicalOverview and slides of the last intermediate presentation

2009-12-19T16:54:00.004+01:00

(TechnicalOverview including all systems of the final setup)

[download the presentation slides]

SOAHARBOR @ 26c3

2009-12-18T16:49:00.003+01:00

Our team will work on (and present) the harbor on the "Essen branch" of the 26th Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin. Visitors welcome!

[more information here]

SOAHarbor Live! - Enjoy!

2009-12-17T21:37:00.004+01:00

PING! - We're still coding...

2009-12-03T18:39:00.002+01:00

Programming feels like being drunk...

2009-11-27T13:06:00.005+01:00

(a 'baguette' from Pizzeria La Palma Essen - looks more like a pita!)

(the setup for high-performance SOA engineering)

(uncommented - see post title!)

Happy refactoring! :)

2009-11-18T21:02:00.004+01:00

Hey folks,

we are really sorry not to have posted for such a long time... we are now working hard on the project but as you can imagine, we can only be proud for our progress when there is a VISIBLE result. There are many interesting things around the BPEL4LEGO-Engine and all the SOA-related ESB-things, but posts about that (maybe including screencasts) are really time-consuming in creation. So please wait for our next intermediate presentation to be held on november 30th - after that, we surely have some nice more stuff for you.

In the meantime, I have a nice screenshot for you:

This screen shows our Mule component responsible for external SOAP calls by NXTs. The first approach needed nearly 500 LOCs and finally didn't work ;) - Now I found a new approach reducing the code to 130 LOCs! YEEEEEEHA ;)!

Cheers
Tim

StockRobot helped us reducing calories for lunch :)

2009-10-23T17:31:00.007+02:00

The StockRobot formerly had some balance problems, but with MILSANI durable cream (sorry, no website available), everything works perfect! See below:

Small correction ^^

2009-10-19T23:41:00.002+02:00

Hey folks,

I'm sorry, the last svnstat report included our sandbox projects with some test code and full Eclipse workspaces... :) Here's the LOC history only for the "real" code:

Project evolution

2009-10-17T00:59:00.002+02:00

This is one of the nice graphs statsvn can create for SVN repositories. A great tool that generates many more of useful reports!

If we really have nearly 50.000 LOCs now, where will the project end? What if someone would request JavaDoc comments ;) ?

Pulling up a packet is not as easy as you may think ;)

2009-10-16T12:20:00.000+02:00

LoadingBridge 2.0 and PacketElevator 2.0 moving!

2009-10-01T20:20:00.000+02:00

The first version of the LoadingBridge and the PacketElevator unfortunately were not fault-tolerant by construction, cause the claws were moved up and down with a tiny rope - now our harbor engineers used a gear bar for the LoadingBridge and a long gearless bar in combination with two big rubber wheels for the PacketElevator. See the results below:

(LoadingBridge 2.0)

(PacketElevator 2.0)

For completeness: Slides from the first intermediate presentation (June 2009)

2009-09-25T20:51:00.001+02:00

The scenario's storyboard and other introducing information inside! :)

[get the slides]

Next SOAHARBOR-Day@Essen

2009-09-25T17:59:00.000+02:00

We're currently facing problems with the miniminiminimalistic resources of these NXT machines... but our LoadingBridge is working fine with a hardcoded Java program!

BPEL4LEGO processes in work, NXT-ESB-Connector nearly ready, now coding on the SOA-Monitor...

Intermediate presentation

2009-09-11T22:58:00.002+02:00

Our team did that presentation for our project tutors from the SSE group. We presented the current state, talked about the next steps to take and some additional features to goldplate our SOA ;). The audience was very pleased and we're all looking forward to the next weeks of hard work... stand by ;)

[get the slides]

Talking about harbors...

2009-09-09T16:39:00.000+02:00

What software helps you making nice architecture overviews?

2009-08-30T00:23:00.000+02:00

I'd really want to know the answer... but for now I have to fight with Inkscape to get the architecture diagram done... here's an excerpt:

And it should have looked like this ;)

Testing our conveyor belt

2009-08-28T22:57:00.000+02:00

Jan and Tim took that video just after putting the tube onto that machine...

First impressions of our harbor

2009-08-28T22:30:00.000+02:00

After moving our project office to Tim's flat, we took some photos of our harbor. It's not finished yet... the stock robot and the ship(s) are still missing...

(the conveyor belt with a bicycle tube)

(the whole harbor)

(the loading bridge - currently without wheels ;))

(the warehouse with these nice packets inside)

... please stand by... we're going to work hard on that project in the next weeks...!