Bruce Tate's Blog

JDO: Let the games begin

From the very beginning, the JDO specification has been surrounded by controversy. You want drama? Consider the new startup specification against the establishment of relational database vendors and TopLink, the leading OR mapper. You want strangeness? Consider a specification for transparent persistence without any object relational mapping at all. You want a full-out bare-knuckled brawl? Consider the vocal conflicts between vendors like CocoBase and the JDO vendors; the facts and the fud surrounding byte code enhancement, and the pure transparent technologies of the lightweights against the cumbersome persistence of the establishment.

For all of the world, it looked like JDO was going to die a slow, lingering, silent death. EJB succeeded based on the sheer marketing muscle of IBM, BEA, Oracle, and to a lesser extent, Sun. Then, after a backlash against EJB, many returned to JDBC with POJO. TopLink stumbled and slipped, and it looked like persistence in general was going to take a back seat for a while.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the grave. Hibernate awakened the masses with an elegant, pragmatic implementation. And JDO began to show up again. Like the ragged peasant in Monty Python's Holy Grail, JDO just wouldn't hurry up and die; it wouldn't get on the cart (of dead plague victims). Little nimble vendors like SolarMetric effectively evolved JDO technologies, and brought it into the relational mainstream. JDO Genie built a simple and effective user interface.

So the expert group built a very strong 2.0 specification, patching the major holes in JDO. It's actually a model for how the JCP should work: they used practical, real-world experience to dramatically improve the previous version. And the intrigue started all over again. BEA, IBM and Oracle no-voted the JDO spec, and Borland abstained, but everyone else voted for it. EJB 3 announced that CMP as it existed was basically dead, and would be supported for backward compatibility. Instead, it would be replaced with a POJO persistence model. Gavin King, creator of Hibernate, joined the expert group, and it looked like EJB 3 would in fact be Hibernate. And some members of the expert group fed that false impression. The JDO community wailed. Surely, this time, they would have to get on the cart.

Then, many in the standards community got together and decided that it might be important to break persistence away from the EJB specification. As far as I know, the persistence specification is unsettled, and JDO has a tremendous opportunity to take advantage. They’ve put out an early specification. It’s been very well received. And here we are, at JavaOne. And the drama continues, but this time, within the JDO community.

First, Versant and Kodo announced that they were ending their co-marketing relationship. By itself, this would not make sense, because SolarMetric liked the increased visibility in this marketplace, and Versant liked having an increasing presence around relational databases. The move was quickly explained when Versant announced the acquisition of JDO Genie, a lesser implementation with inferior mapping capabilities, but still, a market player based on innovative user interfaces and ease of use. The message from Versant is clear. Relational databases have won. Nowhere in the JavaOne media guide could you even find the word object-oriented database in the Versant literature. They seem to be strongly targeting the relational community, and based on continually declining market for OODBMS, that’s a sound move.

For a return salvo, SolarMetric hired the independent giant, Robin Roos, effectively showing the rest of the persistence industry that SolarMetric planned to compete in Versant’s back yard. Finally, SolarMetric bolstered their application strategy by announcing a tighter integration with Spring. That effectively gives Kodo features like declarative transactions without having a full application server. So SolarMetric’s counter moves look to be aggressive.

So in the shadows of JavaOne, big things are happing all across the JDO landscape. It’s an important one to watch, because I believe that the Kodo product is the best high-end implementation of transparent persistence today. (I like Hibernate on the low end.) What happens next? Stay tuned.

Comments

• high end What is the definition of a high end and a low end implementation?

  Posted by: reto on June 29, 2004 at 01:54 PM

• Please provide links A minor nit: please provide links in your blog posts. Blogs are intended to foster community and one of the ways they do that is by kntting a community together through the use of links. You always refer to numerous projects in your posts and it would be useful to be able to link right to them from your posts. Do I know how to use Google? Absolutely, but the point is the usability of blogs.

  Posted by: pcallies on June 29, 2004 at 06:03 PM

• JDO Genie www.jdogenie.com www.solarmetric.com It would be better to list the pros and cons of JDO Genie vs Kodo instead of using general terms like "lessor implementation". Different people have different requirements. For some people JDO Genie will be better. Others may prefer Kodo. JDO Genie is much faster than Kodo. Is this not an important feature for a "high end transparent persistence solution"? Anyway, anyone looking standards based transparent persistence should download JDO Genie and Kodo and do their own evaluation. Disclosure: I am one of the JDO Genie developers. You should clarify your relationship with the guys from Solarmetric.

  Posted by: davidtinker on July 02, 2004 at 04:36 PM

• JDO Genie David, I enjoyed meeting you at JavaOne. You and your team have done a great job, and have built a credible JDO solution (top 3) in a very short time. Congratulations on the acquisition. You're to be commended. But realistically, others have been at it longer, and have had more time and resources. In the case of SolarMetric, they've used the time well. If you look at the two products side by side, I don't think that there's any question that Kodo's ahead...and right now, you've got quite a bit of ground to cover. Who knows? With more resources provided by Versant, maybe you'll be able to close the gap, after you spend a little time integrating. Re. a comparison, I don't think that you want to do a blow-by-blow comparison, and I certainly wouldn't want to blind side you with one. You're a good guy, and you sell a good product, and now you have some pretty firm backing. Further, it's not in the spirit of the blog, which talked about the intrigue of Versant choosing a partner, then unchoosing them and acquiring your company. You don't think that the way that it all played out is a little bit interesting? I certainly hope that it has been for my readers. As to my relationship with SolarMetric, it wouldn't take a whole lot of detective work for anyone to find that I - wrote a book with Patrick Linskey, CTO of SolarMetric - co-presented a session with them at JavaOne So you'd be crazy to assume that I've tried to hide any agenda. I'm an open book, and there have not been many more open books in the industry. I've been very clear about my product preferences and my motivations through the years. I like SolarMetric, so I've sold a lot of product for them. (Without compensation, I might add.) But I've done a grand total of one day of consulting with them in my whole life, in areas completely unrelated to your product. One day. I'm just a preferred provder of services, because I like the quality and depth of their products. Surely you also have your preferred providers? But I've also recommended many other products, or worked with headquarters organizations, for many other persistence frameworks, including IBatis, Spring JDBC, Hibernate, TopLink, Persistence EdgeExtend, CMP, BMP, and many others. In fact, my book, Better, Faster, Lighter Java, is far more friendly to Hibernate than Kodo. Yes, there are situations where I do recommend Hibernate over Kodo. I've not recommended JDO Genie yet. That's not out of any spite, it just hasn't come up. So take the blog in the spirit that it's written. Versant chose a partner in an earlier stage of evolution, and SolarMetric made some counter moves. End of story. Take care, and sorry if I offended you. That was not my intent.

  Posted by: batate on July 02, 2004 at 07:28 PM

• Please provide links Thanks for the hint. I'll try harder. Give me a couple of more blogs to learn the format and the community.

  Posted by: batate on July 02, 2004 at 07:34 PM

• JDO Genie Hi Bruce Yes it was good to meet you at JavaOne. I was unhappy that you left the performance advantage of JDO Genie out of your summary. I think I overreacted a bit in my response and I apologise for that. Cheers David

  Posted by: davidtinker on July 02, 2004 at 08:18 PM

• JDO Genie No offense taken. I certainly believe that you have the most innovative user interface out there. Re. speed, I'd be willing to bet that SolarMetric believes that they have the fastest JDO implementation out there. In truth, persistence frameworks are notoriously difficult to benchmark accurately and without bias, and are highly dependent on scenario, so I'm certainly not qualified to make that judgement. Good luck with your new venture.

  Posted by: batate on July 02, 2004 at 09:01 PM

• Whatever happened to Robin Roooos?

  Posted by: don8201 on August 26, 2005 at 02:46 PM

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