GlassFish v3 Prelude Previews New Features

The features of GlassFish v3 Prelude that should prove most important to developers are:

• Modular architecture based on OSGi
  
  
• Rapid redeployment — maintains session state on Java Web application redeploy
  
  
• Native Rails deployment support

GlassFish v3 Prelude is available for immediate download. Support is available with Sun GlassFish Enterprise Server v3 Prelude.

GlassFish v3 Prelude re-hosts existing Java Web 2.0 technologies on a microkernel OSGi-based architecture. The microkernel architecture makes GlassFish v3 Prelude a lightweight deployment platform that starts quickly and uses resources sparingly because it only starts those services required to support deployed applications.

Moreover, you can add features to the platform dynamically without having to restart. The additional ability to host dynamic languages makes GlassFish v3 Prelude ideal for hosted virtual environments.

With this release, developers can extend the functionality of GlassFish, and expose that functionality through the administration console.

You can be more productive with GlassFish v3 Prelude when you use its new rapid deployment feature. You can redeploy applications to GlassFish without losing session state, and you can deploy either through the command-line interface or through the popular IDEs Netbeans 6.5 or Eclipse.

When you combine the GlassFish plug-in with one of these IDEs and you use their ability to compile and deploy on save, your iterative development cycle is reduced to edit-save-refresh browser. This feature gives Java programmers access to one of they key advantages of dynamic languages: rapid iterative development.

When you develop and deploy your Ruby on Rails applications using JRuby, you gain the benefits of both the highly performant JRuby implementation and the ability to deploy on the GlassFish v3 Prelude platform.

With GlassFish v3 Prelude, you no longer need to deploy your Ruby application as a war file. Instead, GlassFish v3 Prelude can directly invoke the JRuby interpreter and deploy your Rails application without modification. Now, you can use the same high-performance runtime for both development and deployment. Of course, GlassFish v3 Prelude also lets you deploy your JRuby application as a war file.

In addition to multiple runtime deployment options, GlassFish v3 Prelude offers dynamic resizing of the JRuby runtime pool. With this JRuby enhancement, GlassFish performs well under high load while consuming minimal resources under low load.

GlassFish v3 Prelude enables you to run your JRuby and Java applications side-by-side, simultaneously. Both the Java and dynamic language environments benefit from the same reliable and performant deployment platform features.

The following list summarizes the benefits and additional features in GlassFish v3 Prelude.

• Administration Console – GlassFish v3 Prelude includes an easy-to-use Admin Console for configuration and management.
  
  
• NetBeans IDE Bundle – A NetBeans 6.5/GlassFish v3 Prelude bundle will soon be released. You can start now with NetBeans 6.5 Release Candidate 2 or nightly builds.
  
  
• Groovy on Grails – GlassFish v3 Install Groovy and Grails from the GlassFish Update Center, and experience the immediate productivity of a Java-centric scripting language. .
  
  
• Extensible – Extend the functionality of GlassFish with your own features, and expose those features in the administration console.
  
  
• Embeddable – Embed GlassFish v3 Prelude in your solution. Distributed cache supplier ehCache Server and the Nuxeo WebEngine framework already benefit from embedding GlassFish v3.
  
  
• Modular Architecture – Use the new modular architecture with your existing Java web applications and experience faster start-up and reduced resource use. GlassFish v3 Prelude only starts those services that deployed applications need.
  
  
• GlassFish Update Center 2.0 – Update installed features and install new features such as jMaki and Metro Web Services stack with a single click. Installing new features does not require an application server restart.
  
  
• Java EE 6 technology previews – Get an early look at Java EE 6 technologies such as JavaServer Faces 2.0 and Enterprise JavaBeans 3.1 Lite by downloading them from the GlassFish Update Center. For building RESTful applications, JAX-RS 1.0 is a stable release and fully supported.
  
  
• Production Support – Sign up now for production support GlassFish Enterprise Server v3 Prelude, with seamless transition of support to the Java EE 6 certified GlassFish Enterprise Server v3 when available.
  
  
• Available on Popular Platforms – GlassFish v3 Prelude is available on Solaris 10, OpenSolaris, Red Hat 5, Windows XP Professional and Vista Business Edition, Ubuntu 8.0.4, and MacOS X.
  
  
• Production-Ready – GlassFish v3 Prelude is a stable, production-ready web platform.
  
  
• Built to Scale – GlassFish fully supports cometD in support of rich Internet applications, and supports Apache mod_jk for horizontally scaling your deployment.
  
  
• Reduced Startup Time – GlassFish v3 Prelude provides faster startup and deployment times, with fewer resource demands.
  
  
• Rapid Redeployment and Auto-Deploy on Save – By combining rapid reload with popular IDE auto-compile-and-deploy-on-save features, your iterative development cycle is reduced to edit-save-refresh browser.
  
  
• IDE Plug-Ins – GlassFish v3 plug-ins for the NetBeans and Eclipse IDEs are available. Develop, deploy, and run your Java applications on GlassFish v3 Prelude using your favorite IDE.
  
  
• Enhanced JPA Support – GlassFish v3 Prelude supports Java Persistent Architecture, JDBC connection pooling features such as lazy connection enlistment, lazy connection association, and more.
  
  
• Web Tier Technologies – GlassFish v3 Prelude incorporates these web tier technologies: Java Servlet 2.5, JavaServer Pages 2.1, JavaServer Faces 1.2, Java API for XML Web Services 1.2, and Java Architecture for XML Binding 2.1.
  
  
• Support for Web Services – GlassFish v3 Prelude supports RESTful services using JAX-RS 1.0 and provides secure, performant and transactional web services interoperability with .NET Web Services 3.5.
  
  
• Enhanced Monitoring – GlassFish v3 Prelude lets you monitor with minimal overhead thanks to a new lightweight monitoring framework that enables fine-grained control over what is monitored.

GlassFish v3 Prelude is available for download today, with support available. It enables you to rapidly develop and deploy your Java web applications on a microkernel architecture, while providing a preview of Java EE 6 features.

GlassFish v3 Prelude supports the JRuby on Rails and Groovy on Grails dynamic languages. Deploying with JRuby on Rails, you can deploy Ruby applications without the need to create a war file.

• GlassFish Community
• Comparing GlassFish Server v2 and v3 Prelude
• GlassFish Enterprise Server v3 Prelude Download
• GlassFish Support
• GlassFish Partner Initiative
• GlassFish Eclipse Plug-In
• NetBeans Community
• GlassFish Enterprise Server Subscriptions