Oracle has
announced a new version of its Java application server, Oracle GlassFish Server
3.1, as well as an update to the Java Platform, Enterprise Edition 6 software
development kit distribution through the latest release of the Java EE 6
Reference Implementation.
The new
GlassFish release provides enhanced application-development capabilities,
centralized administration and high availability features.
Oracle GlassFish
Server is based on its open-source counterpart, GlassFish Server
Open Source Edition. Oracle officials said the new GlassFish release
delivers on the roadmap laid out at JavaOne 2010 with a focus on new high-availability
features specifically in the areas of load balancing, failover, state
management and centralized administration.
“Oracle
GlassFish Server 3.1 delivers a flexible, lightweight and extensible Java EE 6
platform,” Steven Harris, senior vice president of application-server
development at Oracle, said in a statement. “With this release, Oracle is
delivering on the roadmap we announced at JavaOne 2010 and responding to the
increasing demand for Oracle GlassFish Server by adding features for enterprise
management and high-availability to help customers reduce application and
deployment complexity and increase developer productivity and system uptime.”
Moreover, as
the reference implementation for Java EE, Oracle GlassFish Server also is
serving as a proving ground for the upcoming Java EE 7. Oracle has already
begun working within the JCP (Java Community Process) to submit JSRs (Java
Specification Requests) as part of Java EE 7, including JPA 2.1 and JAX-RS 2.0.
Oracle
GlassFish Server complements Oracle
WebLogic Server 11g, which is designed to run the broader portfolio of Oracle Fusion
Middleware 11g and large-scale enterprise applications, Oracle said in a
press release on the new application server.
Oracle
GlassFish Server 3.1 features developer productivity improvements, which enable
more rapid development and help to decrease costs and time to market, including
new features for OSGi Enterprise including support for JDBC (Java Database
Connectivity) and HTTP Service, as well as Apache Felix 3.0.8.
Oracle claims
developer productivity is enhanced to the point that the new version delivers a
29 percent faster startup/deploy/re-deploy cycle than GlassFish 3.0.1.
The new
version also has enhanced tools integration with NetBeans and Eclipse, as well
as increased compatibility with Oracle WebLogic Server 11g, improving
application portability.
The latest
version also delivers a 34 percent improvement in high-availability performance
over GlassFish 2.1.1. The high-availability features enable customers to
experience greater application uptime and faster application responsiveness.
And GlassFish 3.1 provides failover and load-balancing capabilities, as well as
built-in HTTP and EJB (Enterprise Java Bean) state management.
Other key
features of GlassFish Server 3.1 include:
Integration
with SSH for remote node management
High
availability messaging with GlassFish MQ
Centralized
administration enabling customers to monitor and manage clusters and
standalone servers securely from a single Web-based console, helping to
decrease operational costs and respond to changes quickly
Improvement
in manageability with support of up to 100 instances in a domain
Allows
centralized policy-driven management of GlassFish Metro Web Services from Oracle
Web Services Manager
Highly
productive management console via Oracle GlassFish Server Control to
provide a more seamless end-user experience.
Up to
a 300% performance improvement out of the box
Built-in
performance tuning and load-balancer configuration tooling
Supports Oracle
Coherence for in-memory session state replication
Seamless
application single sign-on through integration with Oracle
Access Manager
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