The Apache Software Foundation has announced the release of Apache TomEE version 1.5, its Java EE 6 Web Profile certified version of Tomcat. The bump in version number (the 1.0 release only happened in May) reflects the large number of fixes and updates included in the new release. In particular, version 1.5 sees significant updates to the database connection pool capabilities, adding transaction support to the native Apache Tomcat and BoneCP connection pool in addition to the Apache Commons-DBCP that was already present. Furthermore, for monitoring purposes, all available pools are now instrumented using JMX.
The product has also gained additional scripting/automation capabilities though a Maven plugin, previously only available as a separate zip file in experimental form. The plugin can, amongst other things, be used to provision servers, install libraries and deploy web apps.
TomEE combines Tomcat (which supports Servlets, JSPs, and JSTL) with a number of other well-known Apache projects. It is offered in three versions, TomEE, TomEE JAX-RS (new for the version 1.5 release) and TomEE+. On top of Tomcat, the base version of TomEE adds:
- CDI from Apache OpenWebBeans
- EJB from Apache OpenEJB
- JPA from Apache OpenJPA
- JSF from Apache MyFaces
- JTA from Apache Geronimo Transaction
- JavaMail from Apache Geronimo JavaMail
- Bean Validation from Apache BVal
The TomEE JAX-RS version then adds Apache CXF to provide support for JAX-RS, whilst TomEE+ adds support for JAX-WS (again using Apache CXF), JMS (using Apache’s ActiveMQ), and the Java Connector Architecture (using the Apache Geronimo Connector). All three distributions are licensed using the Apache license version 2.0.
TomEE has been quick to gain attention from developers, and this is reflected in the attention the product is starting to receive from tools vendors. For example, JetBrains' forthcoming IntelliJ IDEA 12, currently available in early access, includes direct support for TomEE, whilst ZeroTurnaround added support in version 5.0.1 of JRebel in July.