Java EE 5 Development Waiting on Application Server Vendors

Posted by Rob Thornton on Oct 19, 2006 11:21 AM

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Java

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Application Servers

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JBoss ,

Websphere ,

WebLogic ,

Glassfish ,

Java EE

Solution providers are holding off on Java EE 5 development until the major application server vendors release compatible updates. Dr. Dobb's reports that while Sun's Java System Application Server has support and BEA's WebLogic is close, IBM lags behind.

Java EE 5 was a major update and most of the major application server vendors do not yet have compliant versions released. This is delaying most solution providers from developing products based on it, as their customers are not ready for them.

"We have it in our lab, and one of our customers has it in their lab, but no one is deploying it yet," said Robert Abate, principal at RCG Information Technology, an Edison, N.J., services firm with a large J2EE practice. "All of our clients are on application servers that don't support it yet, and none of our clients would be willing to deploy anything on a beta application server," said Aaron Mulder, CTO of Chariot Solutions, Fort Washington, Pa.

Among the major vendors, Sun has released support, WebLogic is close with JBoss following soon after. Oracle has not announced a road map and IBM is lagging significantly behind, with full support not due until 2008. According to Mark Heid, IBM's director of application infrastructure product management:

"We see two types of customers right now, and the majority type is telling us, 'You're shipping things to us so quickly and comprehensively that we're having a hard time consuming it"

Here's an overview of where the vendors stand with their support for Java EE 5

Vendor	Schedule	Remarks
Sun	Released	Sun Java System Application Server Platform Edition 9.0 was released in May, based on Project Glassfish.
BEA	End of the year	BEA has a preview release out and is targeting a full release of WebLogic with by the end of the year.
JBoss	First quarter 2007	JBoss AS 5 will provide full support.
IBM	Release in 2008	Feature packs for WebSphere 6.1 with support for Web services and SOA are in alpha testing and should be out in the first half of 2007.
Oracle	Unknown	Road map not published.

Amongst other vendors, one noteworthy update is SAP, who, announced last month that they have achieved compatibility with the new specification and they have put out a preview release of it.

One of the biggest changes in Java EE 5 is EJB 3.0. Here is an overview of how the major vendors have responded to EJB 3.0.

Vendor	Response
Sun	Glassfish recives TopLink Essentials from Oracle
BEA	Acquired Kodo by purchasing SolarMetric last November, available stand-alone and in development preview release
JBoss	Hibernate 3.2 released providing full JPA support and certification and embeddable EJB 3.0 engine.
IBM	Feature pack providing support for WebSphere 6.1 goes into testing in the first half of 2007.
Oracle	Oracle Application Server 10g Release 3 includes EJB 3.0 implementation.

Another reason for the slow adoption of Java EE 5 could be the continued popularity of the Spring Framework. The IT-eye blog notes that with Spring 2.0 you can leverage many application server features without worrying about upgrading to a new version of the spec.

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   SAP AG already provides Java EE 5

   Oct 20, 2006 11:49 AM by Martin Grigorov

   Hi, Did you check http://java.sun.com/javaee/overview/compatibility.jsp ? SAP rocks !!! ;-) Martin

   Reply

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   Re: SAP AG already provides Java EE 5

   Oct 20, 2006 11:52 AM by Martin Grigorov

   Oops, I didn't read the entire post. You mention it. Nevertheless - SAP's product is very good !!! Martin

   Reply

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   Re: SAP AG already provides Java EE 5

   Oct 20, 2006 12:16 PM by Rod Johnson

   SAP rocks... SAP's product is very good !!!

   Hopefully SAP's product is great. But judging from Google, it seems that you are a SAP employee, and it might also have been good to mention that :-) Rod Johnson Interface21 - Spring from the Source

   Reply

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   You gotta love IBM

   Oct 21, 2006 6:03 PM by Shay Banon

   One of the funniest things I have heard for a long time: We see two types of customers right now, and the majority type is telling us, 'You're shipping things to us so quickly and comprehensively that we're having a hard time consuming it :)

   Reply

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   Re: SAP AG already provides Java EE 5

   Oct 22, 2006 6:58 AM by Martin Grigorov

   Hi Rod, You caught me :-) Actually I am one of the developers of the application server, I am not a marketing guy. To believe in my words you can download a preview from here: http://sdn.sap.com Martin

   Reply

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