Interesting Times for JEE 6 Developers

In the last month or so there has been significant developments in the JEE6 space which gives some choice and some confidence to JEE 6 developers.

Glassfish 3.1.1 has been released

With literally hundreds of bugs fixed GlassFish 3.1.1 provides a full JEE6 compliant app server and supports Java 7 already!  Glassfish is the JEE 6 reference implementation so has supported EE6 for a long time but the last couple of upgrades have seen clustering arrive and now a whole load of much needed bug fixes.

One thing about the GlassFish model I like is that Oracle release the supported version at exactly the same time as the open source version. This means you can develop knowing that when you go live you can decide whether you want to take Oracle's Premium support without compatibility worries. For added value you can also take one of C2B2's Managed Service options to give you local support for application production issues backed up by Oracle for product issues.

JBoss 7 also arrived this month.

This is the community release of the latest JBoss application server. JBoss 7 is JEE 6 Web Profile compliant so as long as you don't use features not in the web profile your applications should deploy. JBoss 7 is a complete rewrite and rearchitecture of the core application server so looks NOTHING like JBoss 6 or 5. JBoss 7 starts extremely quickly due to lazy loading of many modules. 7 also introduces a domain model for configurations of multiple servers, similar to other application servers. This will help management of larger operational systems.

The RedHat supported EAP 6 version of JBoss will be probably be based of 7.1 so JBoss people thinking of experimenting with JEE6 functionality should really skip the JBoss 6 community release and start messing around with 7. No firm dates for EAP 6 are around so my guess is first half of 2012 but don't quote me on that.


TomEE is also looking interesting

TomEE is the apache project building a JEE 6 web profile compliant container from Tomcat and OpenEJB along with OpenJPA and MyFaces and some Geronimo modules to fill in.

This is a very interesting looking alternative to what is becoming a pretty narrow field of JEE6 application servers.

If we also go slightly back in time.

WebSphere 8 was released with JEE 6 support.

Also IBM released WebSphere 8 as a JEE 6 compliant application server. What is remarkable is that IBM beat WebLogic and JBoss to JEE6 compliance. That's a big change from the old days!

So to sum up this summer we have seen a number of major JEE6 releases with the big guns rolling out and improving their JEE6 offerings.


Steve

JavaOne 2011 Content and Speaker Catalogues are Live!

JavaOne Blog announced there will be over 400 sessions offered at JavaOne 2011 in San Fransisco. The tracks are -

• Core Java Platform
• Emerging Languages, Tools, and Techniques
• Enterprise Service Architectures and the Cloud
• Java EE Web Profile and Platform Technologies
• Java ME, Mobile, Embedded, and Devices
• Java SE, Client Side Technologies, and Rich User Experiences
• The Java Frontier

C2B2 Director - Steve Millidge is one of the JavaOne 2011 speakers. Here's some more info about Steve's presentation available in JavaOne 2011 Speaker Catalogue:

Title: Data Grids for Extreme Performance, Scalability, and Availability


Length:   1 Hour
Abstract:

Data Grids:
What are they?
What are they good for?
Why should you be using them?

This session, delivered by an expert group member of JSR 347—the forthcoming data grids JSR—provides an introduction to this exciting new technology. The session first delves into typical data grid product architectures and how they achieve linear scalability, data availability, and extreme performance. It then looks at typical uses of data grids in the field and the applications and architectures that are best suited to them. Finally, it examines the extension of data grids and compute grids to deliver radical new architectures and elastic data stores in the cloud.


Track: Enterprise Service Architectures and the Cloud
Optional Track Emerging Languages, Tools, and Techniques
Experience Level Introductory
Type: Conference Session
Category: Best Practices
Attendee Role: Developer, Architect

Steve Millidge: Steve is the director and founder of C2B2 Consulting Limited. C2B2 is a specialist Java consultancy focusing exclusively on achieving non-functional requirements thereby ensuring Java based solutions go live; Fast, Reliable, Manageable and Secure. Steve has used Java extensively since pre1.0 and has been a field based professional service consultant for over 10 years. Through C2B2 he now focuses exclusively on the configuration of JEE and SOA infrastructure for maximum Scalability, Performance, Availability, Recoverability, Manageability and Security. Having worked for and on behalf of Oracle, BEA and Red Hat professional services he has extensive experience of deploying large scale production Java systems. Steve is an expert group member of JSR107 (Java Caching), JSR286 (Portlets) and JSR347 (Data Grids). Steve has spoken at a number of events including JBoss User Group, JBoss World, UK Oracle User Group Conference, The Server Side Symposium, Community One and regularly presents technical workshops on Data Grids and Coherence in the UK. Prior to founding C2B2, Steve was a Principal Consultant in Solution Architecture at Oracle UK where he was an architect of Ordnance Survey’s Master Map project to deliver digital mapping data over the web and also worked on a large integration application for the Foreign Office. Steve has many years experience of building large scale web applications and was an architect for the Tour De France’s web infrastructure.

Click here for JavaOne 2011 Content Catalogue