At The Spring Experience conference, InfoQ caught up with Patrick Linskey of BEA to discuss the current status of the Apache OpenJPA project. Linskey explains where OpenJPA came from, how it fits into the Object\Relational Mapping space, the differentiating features that OpenJPA provides, the JPA specification, and future plans for OpenJPA.
JPA extension features like Fetch Groups offered by Apache OpenJPA framework can give enterprise Java developers more flexibility in designing JPA applications. Pratik Patel discussed JPA design techniques for developing real-world Java applications using JPA API and Spring 2.5 framework. He did a presentation at the recent Central Ohio Software Symposium on Enterprise JPA.
Apache OpenJPA, an open-source implementation of the Java Persistence API (JPA), recently released version 1.0.0. InfoQ spoke with OpenJPA project lead Patrick Linskey to learn more about this release.
Apache Geronimo, an open-source Java Enterprise Edition (Java EE) application server, recently released version 2.0.1. InfoQ took the opportunity to learn more about Apache Geronimo and where it fits into the application server space.
Apache OpenJPA has been gaining momentum in the JEE world, having been adopted by BEA as the EJB3 JPA implementation in WebLogic Server 10 and in the most recent EJB3 Feature Pack for IBM WebSphere Application Server. OpenJPA started its life in BEA's Kodo product, whose code was donated to the ASF in 2006; the project just recently graduated from the Apache Incubator as well.
BEA has announced the completion and delivery of WebLogic Platform 9.2 (Server, Portal, and Integration) that are designed to provide a unified foundation for BEA's SOA 360 platform. Kodo 4.1, Workshop, and Workshop Studio also had new releases. InfoQ summarized the new features in WL Server and Portal.
BEA has finished the last set of OpenJPA code drops to the Apache Incubator. OpenJPA will be an enterprise grade JPA implementation suitable for production use. It will also form the basis for BEA's commercial Kodo 4.1 and WebLogic's JPA support.
BEA will be open sourcing a large part of the formerly commercial Kodo persistence engine from SolarMetric into the Apache OpenJPA project. Going forward, the commerical Kodo and WebLogic will be built on top of OpenJPA which will recieve a large commitment of resources from BEA for further development. OpenJPA may become a viable alternative to Hibernate this year.
