I am pleased to announce the release of Sun Java System Application Server 8.1 2005Q1 Platform, Standard and Enterprise Editions. This release builds on the capabilities of the previously released 8.0 Platform Edition.

The major new features include: Admin Console GUI Enhancements, Web Services Security Additions, JavaServer Faces 1.1 Support, Performance Enhancements, and Support for J2SE 5.0.

The Platform Edition is available immediately for download - is FREE for development, production and redistribution. Standard and Enterprise Editions are available immediately for evaluation and purchase; either standalone or as part of the Java Enterprise System and Java System Suites.

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Platform Support

Platform Edition - Solaris 10, 9 and 8 (SPARC), Solaris 10 and 9 (x86), Java Desktop System, <span
 class="grey">Redhat Enterprise Linux 2.1 & 3.0, Microsoft Windows XP Pro, Windows 2000 Advanced Server.
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Standard and Enterprise Editions - Solaris 10, 9 and 8 (SPARC), Solaris 10 and 9 (x86), <span
 class="grey">Redhat Enterprise Linux 2.1 & 3.0</span>, Windows & HP-UX support will be available at a later date.

Key links

Download - Platform Edition, Standard and Enterprise Editions

Documentation - Platform Edition, Standard and Enterprise Editions

Sun Store - Standard Edition, Enterprise Edition

Congratulations on shipping 8.1. I hope it does well. A few questions:

1) How does SJSAS 8.1 compare to JBoss in terms of clustering support?

2) BEA's been talking a lot about JSR 183-style annotations. Is that in the plan for a future 8.1 release?

3) Has Sun made performance improvements to the JWSDP that you ship in 8.1 or do you ship the same JWSDP that is available from java.sun.com?

4) Is anyone from the SJSAS team going to be at the Server Side Symposium?

5) There's been a lot of talk about Hibernate on TSS. I'm wondering if Sun has an opinion on it for SJSAS applications?

6) Who is using SJSAS? I would be interested to learn some success stories.

-Frank

Please excuse my ignorance,

But who is using this application server in production exactly? I have tried to find reference customers in Europe and had a hard time getting anything. Even my talks to Sun PR were not that successful. Basically I was looking for large deployments in mid size companies and not the typical DaimlerChrylser reference.

In the past I have seen management requests switching to Sun One (mostly because of the employee based licensing schema I think). Interestingly not only technical reservations but also the missing visibility in the Java community was a no go.

Is this just a European/German thing, or did I miss something?

Regarding downloads: Wasn’t it possible to get at least j2ee.jar in a platform neutral way?

Please excuse my ignorance,But who is using this application server in production exactly?

Maybe the Brazilian Bank, Caixa Economica Federal, use SunOne, I know that Sun has a few customers at Brasilia, however I don't know exacty.

Hi Deivson,

Maybe the Brazilian Bank, Caixa Economica Federal, use SunOne, I know that Sun has a few customers at Brasilia, however I don't know exacty.

thanks for your reply. However this is the kind of feedback I always get. "XYZ, you know, this large company is using it. We don't know where exactly. But they do."

Please excuse my ignorance,But who is using this application server in production exactly?

Jens, If you actually want a reference customer - ie. want to speak to another customer about their experiences then shoot me an email (my email address is obvious); if you just want some case studies - take a look at the case studies posted on the product pages :

http://www.sun.com/software/products/appsrvr/index.xml
http://www.sun.com/software/javaenterprisesystem/index.xml

Rich Sharples
Sun Microsystems

Hi Rich,

I actually do know the case studies at sun.com. Maybe I wasn't specific enough - I was looking for larger deployments in mid size or even smaller companies in Europe or Germany. The reason? Because - in my opinion- a widespread use in _this_ market underlines its quality and market relevance.

Don't get me wrong - I am not here to attack you, Sun or Sun One. I more or less try to clarify my facts in order to give the right answers next time.

Jens

Hi Rich,I actually do know the case studies at sun.com. Maybe I wasn't specific enough - I was looking for larger deployments in mid size or even smaller companies in Europe or Germany. The reason? Because - in my opinion- a widespread use in _this_ market underlines its quality and market relevance.Don't get me wrong - I am not here to attack you, Sun or Sun One. I more or less try to clarify my facts in order to give the right answers next time.Jens

This and the followup post are I think the two key points IMHO behind the Sun App server, specifically the platform edition.

I think it's great that Sun provides the platform version of the app server, because I think having the app server readily available for small-medium size deployments (departmental applications) is very important.

With the onset of the the free databases that are more than adequate at this level, having an app server is an important part of the overall Java stack.

JBoss is obviously the dominant player in this space, particularly in mindshare.

But also, Sun has downloaded a gazillion instances of its app server which folks are using for learning. But how many of those are actually being deployed? How often is the Sun version being cast aside as the users migrate to JBoss or another "production" app server.

Is there a silent majority out there that's using and happy with this server? Or is it not even given a fair shake due to the mindshare et al surrounding JBoss?

As I understand it, it doesn't have the highest reputation and, justified or not, that may drive others away to other app servers without even giving Sun a second look. "Sun makes an app server? Really?"

and how does Platform Edition compare to Standard and Enterprise?

Marina
http://www.servletsuite.com/

You may find your answers here:
http://www.sun.com/software/products/appsrvr/index.xml

The short answer is:

    * Platform Edition provides a full-featured, high performance small footprint J2EE platform suitable for deploying applications and Web services in places that were previously cost prohibitive. It is ideal for embedding and OEMing and is the default run-time container for all Sun's server side Java developer products and is bundled in Solaris.

    * Standard Edition extends the capabilities of the Platform Edition to provide secure, remote, multi-instance, multi-machine management. It is aimed at high-volume applications and Web services, its built-in clustering capabilities provide enhanced service availability.

    * Enterprise Edition further extends the capabilities of the Standard Edition to provide continuous availablity for applications and Web services. It is aimed at business critical, high value applications and Web services. Its built-in session replication datastore ensure that unplanned outages can be completely transparent to end-users.




Regards
Klaus

I installed Sun's J2EE 1.4 SDK 2005Q1 on Windows XP Professional.

I was surprised to discover that Sun's installer did not register Sun's application server as a Windows service.

I checked Sun's documentation and it does not mention how to run the application server as a Windows service.

I'd like to be able to run the app server as a Windows service.

Is Sun planning to support this feature?

-Sean

Hi,

Use the Java Service Wrapper at: http://wrapper.tanukisoftware.org/doc/english/introduction.html

I've used to to run JBoss and ActiveMQ as Windows services and Linux daemons.

Hi,Use the Java Service Wrapper at: http://wrapper.tanukisoftware.org/doc/english/introduction.html

It is surprising that Sun does not provide this functionality in their product. Oracle has it; BEA WebLogic has it; and so does IBM Websphere.

... It is surprising that Sun does not provide this functionality in their product. Oracle has it; BEA WebLogic has it; and so does IBM Websphere.

Sun *does* provide this functionality. Well, Sun does it not provide with the free Platform Edition, but with the commercial Standard and Enterprise Editions.

Another one of many differences is that the Standard and Enterprise Editions come with Watchdogs do restart the application server automatically in case of failure and a standalone remote enabled administration instance.

Regards
Klaus

You can use instsrv.exe that comes with Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools to install any program as services.

The older version couldn't run behind IIS (or if it could, it wasn't obvious). They mentioned at the time that they were going to add that ability, so I'm just curious if they have.

The older version couldn't run behind IIS (or if it could, it wasn't obvious). They mentioned at the time that they were going to add that ability, so I'm just curious if they have.

Yes, docs. for previous version here :

http://docs.sun.com/source/816-7156-10/agplugin.html#20109

and latest version (8.1 2005Q1) here :

http://docs.sun.com/source/819-0215/loadb.html#wp1048160

Rich Sharples
Sun Microsystems

Does this work for the Platform Edition? I guess, the real question is whether the sun-passthrough.dll is provided in the Platform Edition download. The docs you linked to were for the Enterprise Edition (and talking about load balancing and failover). I couldn't find any reference to it when I looked here: http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/819-0076

Is there any snowballs chance that you can use CMP with Postgres in this system?

Does this work for the Platform Edition? I guess, the real question is whether the sun-passthrough.dll is provided in the Platform Edition download.

No the Load Balancer Plugin is only provided in Standard and Enterprise Editions. Unless there is a generic HTTP proxy passthrough available for IIS your only option would be to use Sun's Web Server or Tomcat (both of which do provide such a proxy).

The docs you linked to were for the Enterprise Edition (and talking about load balancing and failover). I couldn't find any reference to it when I looked here: http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/819-0076Is there any snowballs chance that you can use CMP with Postgres in this system?

We haven't certified Postgres against CTS so, even though it might work for general JDBC there could well be edge cases in CMP where it doesn't.

Rich Sharples
Sun Microsystems

Frank, I couldn't post my reply using the TSS editor (invalid HTML??), so my response is on my blog - http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/sharps/20050214

I'll try and re-post it here when I get some more time and patience.

Sorry for the cross posting.

Rich Sharples
Sun Microsystems

IMO the biggest advantage of the SUN app servers 7/8 is that PE is FREE even for PRODUCTION.

It means that SUN app servers are deployed in commercial environments and also in non commercial environments. I suppose that SUN ASs 7/8 have about couple of million downloads.

From both areas SUN app servers get feedback and bug reports.

IMO in some way it brings advantages of both open source and close source SWs together ...

Damian

I am starting to learn JSP/Java/Servlets programming. Many times in the past I have wanted to start in this area but I got held back by the incredibly messy installation and configuration of Apache/Tomcat. I have been using Unix for over 12 years and Linux since 1995 so I am no newbie. For me the pain required to get Apache/Tomcat working was a sure deterrant against learning JSP/Java. Then suddenly netbeans comes into the picture and along with the Sun Java App Server PE I now have a completely integrated development environment for this technology. And all of this without having to beg my boss for the money to *experiment*. My boss is a big .Net fan but I do not like the microsoft technology. He would never have agreed to shell out cash for a Unix based technology even though it is superior to windows. However, now that I have these two software components on my development server in the office I can develop and deploy JSP WebApps for him at exceptionally low cost (just the price of the hardware). Once he sees how well the technology works it is my hope he will change his mind and then maybe purchase a commercial license for the standard edition. Either way it is a win for Sun. Unless Sun finds a way to give their software and technology visibility it will eventually be rail roaded by microsoft's .Net and C#. I think Sun made a smart move by releasing netbeans 4.1 and the Sun App Server 8 PE together. I also find the Sun Java App Server more stable than Apache/Tomcat. It might even be faster.

Juan