OSGi on Google Android using Apache Felix

Speakers:

Short Description

A broad alliance of leading technology and wireless companies recently joined forces to announce the development of Android, an open and comprehensive platform for mobile devices. Google Inc., T-Mobile, HTC, Qualcomm, Motorola and others have collaborated on the development of Android through the Open Handset Alliance, a multinational alliance of technology and mobile industry leaders.

At the core, the linux based Android platform features a virtual machine, called Dalvik, that uses another format for the class files but otherwise look very much like Java. They also provide a utility that can convert Java class files to so called DEX files: the native Dalvik format. It is a VM for applications and is itself a so-called MVM i.e., able to run several programs in the same address space where the individual applications can communicate with each others via (remote) services. Java code generally runs on Dalvik without changes to the source code. The OSGi specifications lend themselves well as platform for loosely coupled and extensible applications. In fact, one of the expert groups within OSGi focusses on mobile phones. The OSGi framework allows these applications to be dynamically deployed and updated and provides a clear dependency and life-cycle model. The advantage of having an OSGi framework on the Android platform is obvious. There is a lot of existing code out there that can be used unmodified on the Android platform. This will allow Android applications to be written as small bundles that only provide the GUI code, all the other work is done by bundles that can run just as easily on any other Java platform that supports an OSGi framework. It will also allow Android phones to be managed by existing management systems because the OSGi specification has a management API that is widely supported. It is thus very interesting to investigate whether an OSGi framework can run as an Android application. The authors showed that this is possible using Apache Felix, a free OSGi implementation from the Apache Software Foundation.

In this session we will introduce Android and the associated SDK by developing a small example application and run it in the emulator. Next, we will explain how to embed Apache Felix inside an Android application and how to develop OSGi modules (so called bundles) that can take advantage of the Android services as well as providing their own services to other interested parties. Finally, we show-case the added value by dynamically adding and removing functionality to our application at runtime.

Level

Medium

Track

Mobile & Embedded
New & Cool

Prerequisites

Requirements for participants are a basic understanding of the OSGi specifications and experience with bundles and services.

The presentation will focus on:

• the Android platform, SDKs, and emulator;
• how to embed Apache Felix inside an Android application;
• how to prepare and preprocess bundles to run on the Android platform;
• how to bridge and use Android service to and from the OSGi service registry;
• and how to dynamically add and remove functionality using the OSGi management API

Language:

Karl Pauls  Luminis Karl is the lead software engineer at luminis iQ products and is an early adopter of OSGi being involved with OSGi based applications for more then six years. He is a commiter and member of the PMC of Apache Felix. He received an MS (Dipl.-Inform.) in computer science from the Freie Universität Berlin.

Marcel Offermans  Luminis Marcel werkt al sinds de oprichting als software architect bij luminis. Hij heeft uitgebreide kennis van Java en C/C++ en vindt het leuk om met nieuwe software technologie te innoveren. Daarnaast is hij als committer bij Apache Felix, een OSGi implementatie, actief in open source.