Computerworld - Novell Inc. earlier this month bundled the open-source, J2EE-compliant JBoss Application Server with its SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9, giving application developers a built-in deployment option.
Novell's SUSE Linux-JBoss offering includes a software development kit with documentation and tools that aim to make developers more productive. Technical support is being provided by Novell with backing from Atlanta-based JBoss Inc., which announced last month that its open-source application server passed Sun Microsystems Inc.'s compatibility test suite for Java 2 Enterprise Edition 1.4.
JBoss CEO Marc Fleury said Java virtual machine (JVM) performance had been hampered on Linux due to limitations with the kernel threading model. But Novell's SUSE Enterprise Server 9 supports the 2.6 Linux kernel patches that fix the threading model, he said.
"That will lead to better performance and scalability for Java virtual machines, so now Linux can be a very serious enterprise-level choice when it comes to deployment platforms," Fleury said. "Novell is doing the right things to make SUSE Linux the best Linux platform to run Java. I certainly hope to see Red Hat step up with a 2.6 enterprise shipment of Linux."
Red Hat Inc. has incorporated some of the 2.6 kernel features into its current Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 release. Version 4, due early next year, will be built around the new kernel, Red Hat spokeswoman Leigh Day said.
At the recent LinuxWorld Conference in San Francisco, Novell also announced that the next major release of its exteNd application suite, due in late 2005, will be bundled with JBoss Application Server 4.x rather than the exteNd Application Server it acquired in 2002 from SilverStream Software Inc.
A maintenance release of exteNd will support the JBoss application server by year's end, according to Ashish Larivee, a director of product marketing at Novell.
Continued Support
Even though Novell will no longer ship new releases of its application server, it pledged to continue support for the product, as well as for IBM's WebSphere, BEA Systems Inc.'s WebLogic and Jakarta Tomcat.
"We have been looking at supporting open-source projects and products wherever it makes sense within our product portfolio, and an application server is pretty much a commoditized part of the platform," Larivee said. "We first investigated trying to open-source our application server, but because of licensing restrictions, we were unable to do so. The next option was to look at the most popular open-source application server, and JBoss was the clear choice."
Novell plans to provide a series of white papers and technical guides to help customers, but the company expects migration issues to be minimal since JBoss is J2EE-compliant.
Free Insider GuideCopyright © 1994 - 2012 Computerworld Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of Computerworld Inc. is prohibited. Computerworld and Computerworld.com and the respective logos are trademarks of International Data Group Inc.
