New JBoss Products Cater to Variety in Java Landscape

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Java is a wildly popular programming language for enterprise applications, and it's exploded in recent years into a landscape full of variety in its choices of development and deployment models.

Given the number of frameworks and tools available to Java developers, and the increase in lightweight and Web-based Java applications, a full-blown Java EE application server is overkill in certain situations. With that in mind, Red Hat made a pair of announcements at the JavaOne Conference in early June that will give developers a choice of programming models and frameworks, and still enjoy uniformity of management and enterprise-class reliability in the platform.

First, Red Hat announced the JBoss Open Choice application platform strategy. It provides application developers with the ability to choose the framework, languages, and programming technologies that best fit the application requirements they are trying to achieve without sacrificing reliability, availability, scalability or manageability across their projects.

The Open Choice strategy employs new JBoss application platform products, built on a common architecture and designed to address customers' unique application deployment needs without the complex dependencies of traditional Java EE application server products. At its heart is the JBoss Microcontainer, a new application platform architecture that isolates core enterprise class platform services from the variety of container and framework choices available today.

This architecture allows Java developers to embrace the latest innovations from the Java community, including Spring, Seam, Struts, Google Web Toolkit, and Java EE, and lets Red Hat build a platform that can accommodate the next wave of changes to Java for the enterprise.

Java application platforms had previously been a one-size-fits-all proposition. With the Open Choice platform strategy, developers can use the latest and greatest Java tools, while the IT operations staff has a stable platform for deployment.

Red Hat's second announcement at JavaOne introduced the first products born of the JBoss Open Choice strategy. The three application server platforms include solutions for each of the common types of Java applications (or workloads) found in the enterprise today, from simple Web applications, to light and rich Java applications, to Java EE-based applications.

The JBoss Enterprise Application Platform is an existing product that uses clustering, caching, messaging, transactions, and a full web services stack to help serve the needs of high-transaction applications, such as travel-booking Web sites. Applications that run on this platform need to ensure the integrity of the transactions and high availability. The JBoss Enterprise Web Platform is a new product that builds upon the Java EE Web Profile. It provides a lightweight version of the popular JBoss Application Server, but continues to include enterprise features for clustering, caching, and simple web services. Web Platform could be used by applications that rely less on transactions, but still need caching and uptime requirements, like a site that serves a lot of video content, for example.

The JBoss Enterprise Web Server serves the needs of developers and applications working with the lightest Java workloads. It is targeted at simple Web applications and provides stable, long-term enterprise product support for Apache Web Server, Apache Tomcat, and all of the common connectors used in between.

The three application server platforms are based on the specific features of Java EE that are most popular among developers creating Java applications. The three workloads they address are the most commonly emerging workloads seen in Red Hat customer environments, said Aaron Darcy, JBoss Product Line Director at Red Hat. In fact, Darcy said, many of Red Hat's larger enterprise customers are using all three workloads.

Red Hat's Open Choice platform strategy and its core architecture will address the concerns of both Java developers, who want platforms that accommodate lightweight frameworks like the Spring Framework or Google Web Toolkit, and IT operations, who appreciate platforms that can include whatever comes along in the future.

As for Red Hat, the Open Choice strategy and the JBoss application server platforms will give the company a leg up over competitors like Oracle and IBM, whose larger focus still remains on the "one-size-fits-all" approach for heavier applications.

"They haven't innovated or provided value at the core application server for some time now. If you take a look at all of the influential developments in Java standards, you'll see that Red Hat has been leading the way," Darcy said.