OSGi - New in OSGi Release 4

New in OSGi Release 4

The new features of OSGi R4 in brief are as follows:

• New modularization capabilities providing enhanced encapsulation of networked services that can share a single Virtual Machine (VM).
• Modularized class sharing and hiding of implementation details.
• Methods for handling multiple versions of the same classes so old and new applications can execute within the same VM.
• Localization of OSGi bundle manifests enabling service deployment anywhere.
• Enhancements in security and policies: The new Conditional Permission Admin service provides an elegant and simple way to manage networked services securely. It also supports dynamic policies that can depend on external (custom) conditions. Combined with R4 support for digital signatures, this provides a central security solution to large deployments of products using the OSGi Service Platform.
• A Declarative Services specification that addresses memory footprint issues that can prevent small embedded devices from using a service oriented architecture to support multiple applications. Additionally, it significantly simplifies the service-oriented programming model by declaratively handling the dynamics of services.
• Compatibility with Release 3, requiring no changes for existing OSGi bundles, applications, or services.