Red Hat To Roll Out Three Versions Of JBoss

Red Hat appears ready to unclog the JBoss dam.

Over the course of this year, Red Hat plans to unwrap not one but three modularly designed versions, or profiles, of its JBoss application server.

The products will use as their foundation the 5.0 version of the JBoss Application Server, which was finally delivered this past December after being delayed for almost a year.

The three upcoming servers will range from versions intended for the Web all the way up to higher-end versions to accommodate heavy-duty enterprise class computing. They are expected to work with all Web servers including fully equipped Java Enterprise Edition application servers.

What gives Red Hat the ability to make the new versions modular is JBoss Application Server 5.0's compliance with OSGi, a module system compatible with Java that enables componentization of code. The calls made between modules employ standard XML interfaces.

Company officials are hoping that with OSGi now fully supported, they can avoid the delays it experienced with version 5.0. Last year, Red Hat officials blamed delays in version 5.0’s delivery on having to refactor the product's code, a key step in making it modular.

With the Server 5.0 code now out and about in the open source community, developers can build their own customized profiles. However, anything developers create on top of a version 5.0 foundation won't be supported by Red Hat. The three JBoss profiles to be delivered this year will come with integration, testing, and support.

Red Hat expects to add support for several different APIs and framework to the profiles, including Adobe Systems Flex, Google's WebToolKit, and Hibernate. The added support broadens the options for developers in choosing open source based Java application servers.