The industry's first certified, open source J2EE server has been introduced by JBoss, the self-proclaimed Professional Open Source Company. JBoss Application Server 4.0 is certified for J2EE 1.4.  

"JBoss Application Server 4.0 showcases JBoss' ability to innovate ahead of the market and deliver a uniquely architected product that significantly enhances flexibility and combines the simplicity of standard Java with the power of the J2EE platform," said JBoss CEO Marc Fleury.

To further illustrate this point, JBoss said that JBoss Application Server integration with Apache Tomcat 5.0, one of many Java products that JBoss supports, leads to improved transactional HttpSession clustering over JBossCache. The availability of JBossCache 1.1 was announced just recently, along with the company's new partnership with Sleepycat Software, perhaps best known for its Berkeley DB. This means Berkley DB Java will see integration with JBossCache.

Some major companies have already decided to implement JBoss products. Novell, for example, announced that it would begin to provide technical support for customers using Novell's Extend Java server software products along with JBoss's Java Application Server.

JBoss wants to become the preeminent open source middleware provider. Fleury said, "Open source is rapidly moving beyond Linux and the operating system into middleware. As a company at the forefront of this second generation of open source, JBoss is focused on building an entire open source middleware stack with JBoss as the foundation."

JBoss allows middleware providers to offer simplified programming models without any performance sacrifices, Fleury said. According to JBoss, companies that have been using JBoss AS are satisfied with its capabilities.

Fleury pointed to one of its customers, NLG, as a prime example. Jamie Cash, NLG's director of technical architecture, said that during the past year the company has been relying on JBoss AS. He said the company has been "extremely satisfied" with the server's performance and reliability. He further noted, "The modularity of the architecture enabled us to pick and choose the services we needed and tighten integration with the applications running on top. JBoss AS has allowed us to scale both technically and economically."

JBoss AS 4.0 is immediately available free at http://www.jboss.com/downloads/index. There are no size restrictions regarding product deployment. Since it is licensed under the Lesser General Public license, ISVs can embed and distribute JBoss free of charge.  

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