Ben Alex, SpringSource

Ben Alex is a respected technologist, entrepreneur and speaker. Ben has been working professionally in software since 1995. The software project Ben is most widely known for is Spring Security, which he founded in 2003 and continues to lead at SpringSource. Spring Security is a popular, open-source security framework that is used in numerous government, banking and military installations. Whilst written in Java, the success of Spring Security has seen its architecture ported to other platforms such as Microsoft .NET and Python. Ben's career history also includes other accomplishments in software development and business. Most recently, Ben led the establishment and exponential growth of SpringSource's operations in Asia-Pacific. Before that he founded and grew a successful Australian software company, Acegi Technology Pty Limited. In his spare time, Ben has also been a director and advisor to businesses in industries as diverse as business services, intellectual property licensing and ecommerce. In recent years Ben has presented at technology conferences including The Spring Experience (2005, 2006, and 2007), SpringOne (2005 and 2006) , JavaOne (2008) and The Server Side Java Symposium (2007 and 2008). Ben is also a regular guest presenter at user groups across the world, with recent appearances in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Canberra, Perth, Singapore, Wellington, Auckland and Stockholm. He also authored the security chapter of the Wiley book, "Professional J2EE Development with Spring Framework."

Presentation: "Enterprise Systems panel"

Session: Enterprise Systems

Time: Thursday 16:30 - 17:15

Location: Ballroom Le Grand 3

Presentation: "Spring Portfolio New and Noteworthy"

Session: Server Platforms

Time: Friday 15:30 - 16:15

Location: Ballroom Le Grand 1

Abstract: The Spring Framework is the most popular application programming framework for development on the Java™ platform and the Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE platform), with widespread adoption across many industries. Spring enables POJO-based development in any runtime environment while making it easy for developers to access advanced enterprise services. The current Spring 2.5 release, although backward-compatible, introduces significant new features and enhancements that make Spring more powerful and extensible yet simpler to use. If you’re a Spring user, you should understand these features and how they may benefit you; if you are not yet a Spring user, you may find Spring significantly more compelling than what you’re currently using. In this presentation, Ben Alex discusses some of the key new features. He explains and demonstrates the following: • Annotation-based options for dependency injection: how you can configure Spring without XML if desired and how to mix and match annotation and XML configuration • The ability to make the Spring container scan the classpath for components and how to use and customize this important feature •• The @Component and other “stereotype” annotations and how you can use them to simplify your applications and extend the capabilities of Spring •• The significant improvements in the Spring Web MVC Controller model, taking advantage of annotations for URL mapping and parameter binding •• The overhaul of the Spring integration testing functionality, including support for JUnit 4 and TestNG. Alex shows code examples throughout the presentation, empowering attendees to try these new features out for themselves.