The Java EE ecosystem keeps shrinking

Less than a year ago Oracle announced the Java EE and GlassFish Server Roadmap Update, which defined the end of commercial support for the Oracle Glassfish Server, which is (was) the fully supported release of the GlassFish Server Open Source Edition. In the last few months there has been plenty of comments about this move, some of the most remarkable are:

• GlassFish reduced to “toy product” as commercial offering axed
• GlassFish Commercial is Dead, WildFly and JBoss EAP to the Rescue
• Oracle removed GlassFish plugin for Eclipse

The motivation around this move are probably about Oracle not being keen on supporting two full app server implementations, Glassfish and Weblogic, which apparently makes sense from a commercial point of view. The problem here is that the two products are very different, and if you liked Glassfish usually hated Weblogic (but has somebody ever genuinely liked Weblogic anyway?). Glassfish is a lightweight, easy to install, fast to start, open source product, with a community around, while Weblogic is IMO one of the most bloated piece of software ever: the two products were addressing two very different Java EE markets, being Weblogic's the most lucrative one.

A reply to community's concerns, apparently from an Oracle representative:

"... GlassFish and WebLogic share quite a bit of code, and that helps with application and configuration portability between the two. So, organizations can continue to develop on GlassFish and leverage that development by deploying on WebLogic."

This is one of the most laughable sentences I have read in years: can anyone seriously think a company could develop and test in one application server but then deploy in production with another? Can anyone really assert that Glassfish and Weblogic are that similar? Just try to install both and judge yourself: you could start developing your first Glassfish application while Weblogic installer is still downloading...

Glassfish has always been a minor commercial player, but reducing the available options has never been a successful strategy for any ecosystem, and Oracle is supposed to lead this one. Below are the results of this leadership:

glassfish, jboss, weblogic, websphere Job Trends

Glassfish jobs - Jboss jobs - Weblogic jobs - Websphere jobs

If you care about open source but want / need to deploy into a commercially supported Java EE app server, you now have basically only a couple of options left: RedHat's JBoss EAP and Tomtribe's TomEE. Despite both are fine options, pulling out a minor but strategic member doesn't help arresting the progressive shrinking of the Java EE ecosystem, as differentiation and competition are king.

This is a pity, because Java EE is becoming more and more lean and easy.

JavaOne 2010, Glassfish and Netbeans

Despite the rumors and my own pessimism, it looks like there are plenty of Netbeans and Glassfish sessions at JavaOne 2010. From my point of view the combination of Netbeans + Glassfish and Java EE 6 is the easiest and quickest way to develop and deploy Enterprise-class Java (and Groovy) applications, without all those boring xml configuration files.

As reported by many observers, if we look at the apparently outstanding number of people trying to attend Gf and Nb sessions at Javaone, I think nobody can deny the fact that, contrarily to previsions, interest around both Glassfish and Netbeans is growing at great speed in the Java community.

Tom Barrett's Open ESB and Mural Tutorials

Sun's Tom Barrett has produced a set of very well written and easy to follow tutorials, which can gently lead the reader toward a step by step introduction with many of the newest OpenESB related technologies, together with Netbeans and Glassfish. Good job Tom!

Tom Barrett's OpenESB Tutorials

Dump Glassfish HTTP conversations to debug security

In Glassfish is possible to dump the HTTP conversation to debug Web Services, by adding the following two JVM options to domain.xml:

<jvm-options>-Dcom.sun.xml.ws.transport.http.HttpAdapter.dump=true</jvm-options>
<jvm-options>-Dcom.sun.xml.ws.transport.http.client.HttpTransportPipe.dump=true</jvm-options>

Then when the web service is called the server.log will show complete SOAP envelopes for both request and reply:

[#|2009-01-21T03:13:33.783+0100|INFO|sun-appserver9.1|javax.enterprise.system.stream.out|_ThreadID=25;_ThreadName=httpSSLWorkerThread-8080-0;|
---[HTTP request]---|#]

[#|2009-01-21T03:13:33.783+0100|INFO|sun-appserver9.1|javax.enterprise.system.stream.out|_ThreadID=25;_ThreadName=httpSSLWorkerThread-8080-0;|
Host: localhost:8080|#]

[#|2009-01-21T03:13:33.783+0100|INFO|sun-appserver9.1|javax.enterprise.system.stream.out|_ThreadID=25;_ThreadName=httpSSLWorkerThread-8080-0;|
Content-type: text/xml;charset=UTF-8|#]

[#|2009-01-21T03:13:33.783+0100|INFO|sun-appserver9.1|javax.enterprise.system.stream.out|_ThreadID=25;_ThreadName=httpSSLWorkerThread-8080-0;|
Content-length: 866|#]

[#|2009-01-21T03:13:33.783+0100|INFO|sun-appserver9.1|javax.enterprise.system.stream.out|_ThreadID=25;_ThreadName=httpSSLWorkerThread-8080-0;|
User-agent: Jakarta Commons-HttpClient/3.1|#]

[#|2009-01-21T03:13:33.783+0100|INFO|sun-appserver9.1|javax.enterprise.system.stream.out|_ThreadID=25;_ThreadName=httpSSLWorkerThread-8080-0;|
Soapaction: ""|#]

[#|2009-01-21T03:13:33.783+0100|INFO|sun-appserver9.1|javax.enterprise.system.stream.out|_ThreadID=25;_ThreadName=httpSSLWorkerThread-8080-0;|
<soapenv:Envelope xmlns:soapenv="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:svc="http://xml.netbeans.org/schema/svcMessages">
   <soapenv:Header>
<wsse:Security xmlns:wsse="http://docs.oasis-open.org/wss/2004/01/oasis-200401-wss-wssecurity-secext-1.0.xsd"><wsse:UsernameToken wsu:Id="UsernameToken-27540698" xmlns:wsu="http://docs.oasis-open.org/wss/2004/01/oasis-200401-wss-wssecurity-utility-1.0.xsd"><wsse:Username>wsitUser</wsse:Username><wsse:Password Type="http://docs.oasis-open.org/wss/2004/01/oasis-200401-wss-username-token-profile-1.0#PasswordDigest">xhM3irVV+4ROPhzEjwlEeL7IViI=</wsse:Password><wsse:Nonce>oE1wwvm+ZLeBuvgDJvaLvw==</wsse:Nonce><wsu:Created>2009-01-21T02:13:32.238Z</wsu:Created></wsse:UsernameToken></wsse:Security>
</soapenv:Header>
   <soapenv:Body>
      <svc:payload>Maurizio</svc:payload>
   </soapenv:Body>
</soapenv:Envelope&gt;|#]

[#|2009-01-21T03:13:33.783+0100|INFO|sun-appserver9.1|javax.enterprise.system.stream.out|_ThreadID=25;_ThreadName=httpSSLWorkerThread-8080-0;|--------------------|#]

[#|2009-01-21T03:13:34.828+0100|SEVERE|sun-appserver9.1|com.sun.xml.wss.logging.impl.filter|_ThreadID=25;_ThreadName=httpSSLWorkerThread-8080-0;_RequestID=9ffc6c88-9210-451f-ad64-08ec2bc5ca74;|WSS1408: UsernameToken Authentication Failed|#]

[#|2009-01-21T03:13:35.015+0100|INFO|sun-appserver9.1|javax.enterprise.system.stream.out|_ThreadID=25;_ThreadName=httpSSLWorkerThread-8080-0;|
---[HTTP response 500]---|#]

[#|2009-01-21T03:13:35.015+0100|INFO|sun-appserver9.1|javax.enterprise.system.stream.out|_ThreadID=25;_ThreadName=httpSSLWorkerThread-8080-0;|
<?xml version="1.0" ?><S:Envelope xmlns:S="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"><S:Body><S:Fault xmlns:ns3="http://www.w3.org/2003/05/soap-envelope"><faultcode xmlns:wsse="http://docs.oasis-open.org/wss/2004/01/oasis-200401-wss-wssecurity-secext-1.0.xsd">wsse:FailedAuthentication</faultcode><faultstring>Authentication of Username Password Token Failed</faultstring></S:Fault></S:Body></S:Envelope>|#]

Sun Releases Milestone 1 for GlassFish ESB

Today Sun made the public release of Milestone 1 for GlassFish ESB.

"GlassFish ESB is a binary distribution of OpenESB. It consists of subset of the components in OpenESB. Sun will provide commercial support for GlassFish ESB."

GlassFish ESB delivers a lightweight and agile ESB platform that packages the innovation happening with Project OpenESB into a commercially supported, enterprise-class platform. In essence, GlassFish ESB is a binary distribution that combines technology from Project OpenESB, the GlassFish application server and the NetBeans IDE communities into a supported, commercial distribution.

• GlassFish ESB is a binary distribution from the open source bits in OpenESB.
• Sun will support GlassFish ESB just like any other product: it will not just support the latest version, but also older versions. Once released, fixes to GlassFish ESB will be made on a branch behind the firewall and will be merged periodically to the head of the OpenESB code repository. This is an important point for customers who don’t like to continuously upgrade in production.
• Sun will continue to develop in open source on the OpenESB head.
• GlassFish ESB will be released on Dec 5th; there will be two more milestone releases in between.
• The GlassFish ESB site will soon live on sun.com. There are a few pages for GlassFish ESB on OpenESB just temporarily. We’re trying to separate the commercial aspects (i.e. GlassFish ESB) from OpenESB as much as possible: OpenESB is and should remain an open source community.
• The GlassFish ESB downloads will remain on OpenESB because the bits are being developed in Open Source.
• This does not change anything for the ESB Suite, MDM, and JavaCAPS: we will continue to develop them. There is and will remain a value differentiation between GlassFish ESB and the other products.
• There will be separate component releases next to GlassFish ESB. E.g. IEP will release soon as a separate component.
  

Main Features

• A flexible platform supporting multiple architectural styles (SOA, EJB, MoM, BPM)
• Modular architecture enabling a tailored solution platform for specific project and enterprise needs.
• Leading SOA and WS-* (WS-IT/Metro) support with industry leading interoperability with other platforms
• Integration tooling, based on the award-winning NetBeans IDE with integrated service development, deployment and testing
• Support for JBI, Java EE 5 and a wide range of other key industry standards
• Based on fully open communities Project OpenESB, GlassFish and NetBeans
• Backed by Sun's software support services
• Backed by a large and growing community with an exciting roadmap and future vision
  

Learn more

• Full list of components and standards supported.
• Feature comparison with other other Sun products.

Creating a new CAPS 6-ready GlassFish domain

Louis Polycarpou has written a blog entry to explain an important point about JavaCAPS 6 and Glassfish configuration of additional domains.

CAPS 5.1.x users will notice that there is no longer a domain manager tool to simplify domain management tasks such as domain creation. This was effectively tied to the Sun SeeBeyond Integration Server, which no longer exists, but the domain manager may return in future releases.

Read the full article.

On my side I hope Sun is going to make this procedure simpler, as it was with version 5. The suite is already big and complex enough, we do not really need to remove tools which make our life easier.

Will Java CAPS 6 be based on Netbeans 6.1 ?

Rumors are that the next generation of Java CAPS will be based on a new Netbeans version. No more fights with the eDesigner, eventually. ICAN 5.0 and JCAPS 5.1 IDEs were based on a very old Netbeans (v 3.5) heavily customized by SeeBeyond, called the eDesigner. Additionally jcaps 6 JEE runtime is going to be Glassfish, the Sun open-source application server (at present jcaps runs over old SJAS 8.0).
For seasoned jcaps developers, used to workaround some eDesigner's weird behaviors, it will be a huge improvement, as Netbeans 6 represents probably the most advanced Java IDE in the market (and yes, I mean even better than Eclipse). Glassfish then is one of the best JEE 5 and EJB 3 implementation available, this means Java CAPS 6 is evolving to a complete and powerful Java enterprise application development environment, not limited to EAI only. That shows a strong Sun's commitment in favor of jcaps, good for both partners and customers.