155 Virtual Java Service Container Víctor Gil Oracle Corporation, Czech Republic Chapter 8 1. ABSTRACT This chapter provides an overview of the architecture, installation, and usage of the Virtual Java Service Container (VJSC). It covers Version 1.0 of the VJSC. It also presents the motivation for such a solution and its position among other Java cloud platforms. VJSC provides a framework to deploy and manage Java Services in the cloud. It can be used as a standalone solution, but it leverages its full potential when integrated with a cloud broker system, such as OpenNebula (2011). This integration effort, which was implemented in the scope of the RESERVOIR (Reservoir FP7, 2011) EU 7th Framework Programme, is described as well. First, the authors present several cloud solutions, then they describe the architecture of the VJSC frame- work, including practical coding and usage examples, followed by the lessons learned as a wrap-up. 2. INTRODUCTION Cloud computing has emerged as one of the fastest growing sectors inside the Information Technology industry. It has changed the way we think about IT infrastructure management. Providers of software Services are now able to outsource the operation of the hardware platforms required by those Services. Cloud computing is a natural evolution of the widespread adoption of virtualization. Today virtualization technologies are very mature. Previously defined virtual ma- chines can easily be deployed on cloud providers' data centers. Services running inside the virtual DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-0098-0.ch008 machines can then be easily managed. But some important features are still underdeveloped, such as the deployment of native applications without the creation of virtual machines. The VJSC framework provides unified access to Java application containers (such as OSGi [2011] Containers or Servlet Containers [Oracle, 2011a]) and the Services running in them. It is deployed on top of existing technologies, such us Java SE 6 (Oracle, 2011b) and OSGi. The framework controls the life-cycle and gives ac- cess to the Services. It handles different kind of management operations such as migration. Copyright © 2012, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.