We’re happy to announce immediate availability of WebORB for .NET version 5.0. The release includes some very cool features and a bunch of bug fixes and improvements. Among the new features you will find the following:
- Clustering – WebORB for .NET can automatically form a network cluster which can be defined using a flexible IP/hostname notation. For instance a cluster can be defined using the following expression: 192.168.1.*. Any computer with WebORB on the specified subnet will join the cluster of other WebORB instances running on the same subnet. Once a cluster is formed it can provide the following capabilities:
- Clustered Publish/Subscribe Messaging – Any supported messaging client can publish a message into any clustered WebORB instance. WebORB cluster automatically propagates the message throughout all nodes which in turn deliver the message to the subscribers connected to them. This completely eliminates a single point of failure and linearly increases scalability of a messaging solution. See clustered pub/sub messaging documentation for additional details.
- Clustered Data Management – WebORB Data Management (WDM) is a system combining powerful code generation for client and server sides as well as a runtime engine handling data retrieval, record creation, update or deletion. When a record is created, updated or delete, WDM issues a client-synchronization event for all clients which have (or would have) the record in their possession. The clustering support enables delivery of the client-synchronization events throughout the cluster. The WDM clients can be connected to any clustered-node and they are guaranteed to receive the synchronization events even if they originate elsewhere in the cluster. See clustered data management documentation for additional details.
- Clustered Remote Shared Objects – Remote Shared Object (RSO) is a functionality available for the RTMP clients (originally Flash and Flex, but now provided to Java and .NET clients with the WebORB’s API). An RSO is a collection of key/value pairs. Multiple clients can be connected to the same RSO – they can create, delete or update any of the key/value pairs. When it happens, all other clients connected to the same RSO receive a change notification. With the clustering support, the RSO clients can establish connections with any clustered node. RSO updates and change notifications take place regardless of the node where the change has originated. See clustered Remote Shared Objects documentation for additional details.
- Clustered Singleton Remoting Services – WebORB exposed plain .NET objects as remoting services – any client (JavaScript, iOS, Android, Flex, Flash or Silverlight) can call remote, server-side methods, pass in arguments and receive method invocation result. With 5.0 WebORB introduces a new remote service type. Any .NET class can turn itself into a clustered singleton simply by adding a class attribute. WebORB recognizes the attribute and creates a clustered singleton object. Multiple clients can change the state of the object by invoking the methods through different nodes in the cluster. WebORB guarantees that the same instance is modified regardless of the node handling such invocation. See clustered remoting services documentation for additional details.
- Amazon EC2 Support. WebORB for .NET can now be hosted on Windows EC2 instances. The product supports the entire feature set in the EC2 environment. The primary difference is the cloud-based pricing, which is based on the pay-per-use model. See WebORB for .NET for Amazon documentation for additional details.
- Sencha ExtJS Support. WebORB Data Management can now generate client-side JavaScript code specifically for the ExtJS framework. The generated code includes the API for retrieving relational data and rendering it in Sencha’s datagrid. It also includes the APIs for record creation, update and deletion.
- Advanced Publish/Subscribe Message Filtering – All supported client-side messaging APIs now include the support for message topics and selectors. See WebORB selectors and subtopics documentation for additional details.
A complete list of changes is available in the Release History.