5.4. OSGi Bundles

With OSGi, you modularize applications into bundles. Each bundle is a tightly coupled, dynamically loadable collection of classes, JARs, and configuration files that explicitly declare any external dependencies. In OSGi, a bundle is the primary deployment format. Bundles are applications that are packaged in JARs, and can be installed, started, stopped, updated, and removed.

OSGi provides a dynamic, concise, and consistent programming model for developing bundles. Development and deployment are simplified by decoupling the service's specification (Java interface) from its implementation.

The OSGi bundle abstraction allows modules to share Java classes. This is a static form of reuse. The shared classes must be available when the dependent bundle is started.

A bundle is a JAR file with metadata in its OSGi manifest file. A bundle contains class files and, optionally, other resources and native libraries. You can explicitly declare which packages in the bundle are visible externally (exported packages) and which external packages a bundle requires (imported packages).

The module layer handles the packaging and sharing of Java packages between bundles and the hiding of packages from other bundles. The OSGi framework dynamically resolves dependencies among bundles. The framework performs bundle resolution to match imported and exported packages. It can also manage multiple versions of a deployed bundle.

OSGi uses a graph model for class loading rather than a tree model (as used by the JVM). Bundles can share and re-use classes in a standardized way, with no runtime class-loading conflicts.

Each bundle has its own internal classpath so that it can serve as an independent unit if required.

The benefits of class loading in OSGi include: