The Agenda at TheServerSide Java Symposium

TheServerSide Java Symposium is an intensive educational experience that will catch you up on essential development technologies, give you expert insight into today's most relevant frameworks, and teach you practical, real world ways to architect, develop, and maintain effective Java-based applications and systems. 

Through our 8 tracks, vendor-neutral keynote and panels, TSSJS arms you to:

  • Do more with Java, not just as a language, but as a platform. 
  • Evaluate open source vs. vendor solutions in a realistic, unbiased way.
  • Produce high quality Java applications with tighter project deadlines.
  • Build applications and systems that handle large datasets and multiple data sources robustly.
  • Design, build and maintain a large-scale SOA with Java.
  • Augment your existing serverside skill-set with front end capabilities.
  • Keep your resume competitive with practical skills you can immediately apply to your projects.

Read more about the agenda:

Track Descriptions

Click on the Track Title for full details on the track's host and sessions. You can also view our conference schedule here.

Front-line Java (Case Studies) features Case Studies from successful community implementations of various enterprise Java techniques and technologies. Check out the Front-line Java track.

Development Kung F00 (Languages & Coding) will give you an overview of the Java language and platform landscape today. Learn how to choose which programming language to use for which project; Get best practices for building and coding scalable apps; Go in-depth on JRuby, Groovy, Scala, JavaFX, concurrency and more. Check out the Development Kung F00 track.

The Framework Impasse is designed to help developers understand the relevant frameworks today and includes coverage of Spring, JSF, Tapestry, Wicket, RIFE, Struts 2 and Hibernate. Learn how to choose a Java library, how to pick the best framework, or combine frameworks, for your specific application needs. Check out the Framework Impasse track.

Speed (High Performance Computing) is designed to teach attendees how to achieve optimal performance in their applications. Learn how to compose applications for high performance computing environments, how to cluster for high performance, how to choose the right platform for parallel computing, and how to test, then optimize, performance. Check out the Speed track.

The Visionary (Architecture) is a track devoted to the demands and requirements specific to the Architect's role.  This track covers the latest ideas in architecture, and will show you how to achieve your main objective (maintaining an overall perspective of the entire system) while keeping up with industry innovations that can help you address end user demands.  Go in-depth on essential SLA topics, like performance, logging, tracing, tooling, methodologies and how to handle SLA failures; And, get real world examples of how to architect, design and code for grids. Check out the Visionary track.

From "Market"ecture to Architecture (SOA) is aimed at looking at SOA's role in the SDLC beyond being a marketing buzzword.  Cut through the hype and get real-world perspective on how to approach SOA - Learn how to use the Java platform to build an SOA. Check out the SOA track.

Checkpoints (Persistence) aims to give attendees the tools to ask themselves if what they know about persistence is right - Look at Object Relational management problems and solutions, and learn alternatives to standard ORM and persistence strategies, with coverage of querying and reporting techniques, framework restrictions, XML databases, EJB 3.0, JPA and more. Check out the Checkpoints track.

The Presentation Tier will help attendees understand the server-side technologies at their disposal for creating rich interactive Java applications, and the potential impact presentation technologies can have on the design of their server-side apps. Explore your presentation framework options, and learn how to integrate rich components into your Web apps - quickly and securely. Check out the Presentation Tier track.

Keynotes

• Language-Oriented Programming: Shifting Paradigms with Neal Ford, Author, Art of Java Web Development; Senior Application Architect, ThoughtWorks

Why is there so much XML mixed in with my Java? Why won't everyone stop talking about Ruby on Rails? Is there a paradigm shift coming in the way we write code? This keynote answers these questions and more.

Programmers experienced in dynamic languages tend to build domain specific languages on top of their low-level language. Using DSLs evolves the way we build and use frameworks, escalating our abstraction levels closer to the problem domain and further from implementation details.

This keynote reviews real world DSLs (like business rules), internal and external DSLs, and describes how to build them in all languages, not just dynamically-typed ones. We will delve into why this is an important step in the evolution of building effective software, and describe how tool builders like Intentional Software, Microsoft, and JetBrains are already dealing with this coming paradigm shift. 

Come visit the future of frameworks.

• Why the Next Five Years Will Be About Languages with Ted Neward, Author, Effective Enterprise Java and more

What’s changing in the Java development landscape? What are the key trends that software developers and architects must be aware of to stay ahead of the curve? Noted author and expert Ted Neward answers these questions and more in this keynote presentation.

Software development is at a crossroads. Per-chip performance increases are at a plateau, and we’re increasingly forced to learn how to work better with multi-core CPUs. Mapping user requirements to general purpose programming languages is more difficult than ever. We’re seeing the emergence of language-agnostic “virtual machines” that abstract away the machine. And above any other trend, the functionality available with the current crop of object-oriented languages has arguably been maxed out. Dynamically-typed or more loosely typed languages are promising more power and productivity.

Join Ted Neward and your peers and hear why we’re about to experience a renaissance of innovation in programming languages. You’ll learn what practicing programmers need to do in order to ride the forefront – instead of the trailing edge – of this new wave of computer science.

Panels

Each track will have its own expert panel- Featuring experts on those specific topics. Our track hosts will moderate each panel, and attendees will have a chance to ask their own questions. We have also planned a third day lunch panel where track hosts will discuss the most common frameworks in the field. Get real answers, directly from the source.      

• Cross-Cutting Concerns – A Cross-Discipline View of the Java Platform. Moderated by the editor of TheServerSide.com

This third day lunch panel, moderated by the editor of TheServerSide.com, features the track chairs talking about the most common frameworks in the field, as the frameworks affect the track chairs' specific field. This panel, composed of the track chairs, is meant to discuss the current state of Java development, as opposed to the "most talked about" or "newest."

For example, the most common Web framework is still Struts 1 - Not JSF, Wicket or GWT. This panel will have the track chairs, experts across disciplines, discuss the implications of this type of fact. How does Struts affect performance? Persistence choices? What architectural choices are affected by the use of Struts?

This panel allows attendees to look at the technologies they use everyday in a whole new context. 

• Java Web Framework Smackdown: Struts 2, Spring MVC, Grails, Seam/JSF and Wicket. Moderated by Track Host, Matt Raible

The leading advocates of today's popular Web frameworks will duel under the Vegas Lights. Come and learn when to use your favorite framework and to see if it can live up to its hype.

We're talking about productivity, scalability and maintainability of Java-based Web applications. The emerging trend is that simplicity is better and productivity matters. Furthermore, maintainability is the most costly part of any framework – how do these frameworks perform?

Attend if you're a Java Web Developer, or if you simply like good entertainment. A working knowledge of the popular Java Web framework options will make this session more fun. If you haven't worked with any framework, come and learn who has the best spokesman.

And, ask the leading Java Web Framework experts specific questions - Get answers direct from the source! In this panel, you will learn:

• Sweet spots of various frameworks;

• Roadmaps for the future of each framework;

• Strengths & weaknesses of Grails, Struts 2, Spring MVC, JSF and Wicket.

• MapReduce: Why Does It Matter? Moderated by Track Host, Eugene Ciurana

MapReduce is moving from research labs into mainstream computational applications. After Google invented it, other companies have been adopting it at an accelerated pace since its inception in 2004.

MapReduce is a technique for indexing large data sets in an efficient, cost-effective way by building multi-processing into the hardware infrastructure. It separates parallel processing logic from business logic, making it very easy to extend searches for new applications at a low cost.  MapReduce relies on the use of many commodity systems for its processing, and can be coded in Java, Groovy, and many off-the-shelf open-source tools. MapReduce may lessen the Java infrastructure and application development groups dependencies on database architects and administrators when developing and deploying computationally-intensive search and indexing operations.

This panel will discuss what it is, why it matters, when it should be applied, when it should be avoided, and how to build infrastructure to support this technique.

In this session, you will learn:

• What MapReduce is, and how it compares against traditional indexing techniques;

• Cost/performance advantages of MapReduce;

• When to apply and when to avoid MapReduce;

• How to create MapReduce infrastructure using off-the-shelf, open source products;

• About Hadoop, the open source MapReduce framework;

• How to balance open source and commercial frameworks for your deployment;

• How to evaluate the cost/advantage vs. RDBMS techniques;

• How to scale the application.

Recommended general knowledge:

• Terracotta or other distributed caching system

• Enterprise service bus

• Functors

• Basic server administration and optimization

• Expert Panel: Wherefore the Surface Tier? Moderated by Track Host, Justin Gehtland.

The panelists will discuss the evolution of the user interface and current trends in Web, desktop and mobile platforms. We'll talk specifically about advances in tools and ease-of-development as well as development strategies for targeting multiple surfaces.

Stay tuned for more details on panel focus and participants!

Vendor Tech Briefs

Vendor Tech Briefs are 20 minute product demos from our premium sponsors. Is there a demo you’d particularly like to see? Contact us and let us know.

• Azul Systems Tech Brief: Next Generation Performance Monitoring Tool with Cliff Click, Chief JVM Architect, Azul Systems and Brian Goetz, Senior Staff Engineer, Sun Microsystems

Java performance monitoring tools allow architects to develop high-performance applications by identifying performance bottlenecks as they occur. Azul REALTime Performance Monitor (RTPM) is a new breed of tool: RTPM is a zero-overhead and always-on tool that works both in production and development.

RTPM provides a performance profiling solution, allowing one to systematically identify and resolve performance bottlenecks, increase developer productivity, and deliver breakthrough application performance: RTPM constantly monitors the entire application, the VM and its underlying layers (such as I/O sockets and file caches), and can report on the inner workings of your live Java program by:

  • Displaying the running code on all threads, profiled hot code, JIT'd assembly with hardware performance counters and hot & contended locks with stack backtraces;
  • Rolling GC and heap usage, allocation rates, allocated and live objects, points-to information on the live objects (leak detection), full heap inspection, class hierarchy inspection, I/O rates, etc.)

In addition, RTPM provides standard HTML to any browser for stateless viewing; and standard "get" calls are used to build trend-line data.

• MapInfo Tech Brief: Powerful Location Intelligence Capabilities for Java Developers with Alex Lee, GIS expert; Product Evangelist, Pitney Bowes Software

Organizations are reaping the benefits of including location intelligence in their operational and analysis tools, enabling employees to make better decisions through visualizing data in a geographic context. Envinsa is a location intelligence, Web Services platform that includes a suite of location capabilities, while MapXtreme Java is a powerful mapping server for broad deployment of location intelligence and mapping applications.

These tools utilize J2EE technologies enabling developers to integrate location intelligence into both new and legacy applications. J2EE's "write once, run anywhere" capability provides an array of deployment options in vendor, hardware, and software selections and the Web Services technology enables a wider range of LI integration with business solutions operating in different computing platforms and 3rd-party environments. Development toolkits are abundantly available that support RAD and speed up time-to-market, thus reducing the total cost of ownership.

Organizations are using location intelligence for a variety of applications such as asset management, emergency planning, customer/citizen self-service via the web, determining service availability based on customer location, sales territory analysis, and much more. In this session, you will be introduced to location intelligence and the tools available to help you implement your own solution.

Our editorial team has designed this agenda to provide you with practical, immediately useful skills. We're so sure you will leave TSSJS armed with real-world knowledge that can be immediately applied to your projects, we guarantee it, or we will refund 100% of your registration fee. Register today!