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ARCHIVED REPORT:
Oracle
GlassFish Server

by
Karen Spring

Copyright 2015, Faulkner Information
Services. All Rights Reserved.

Docid: 00018988

Publication Date: 1512

Publication Type: PRODUCT

Preview

Oracle GlassFish Server (formerly known as the Sun Java
System Application Server and Oracle Sun GlassFish Enterprise Server) is an application server based on Java Platform
Enterprise Edition 7 (Java EE 7). This report discusses the main features of the GlassFish Server.

Report Contents:

• Description
• Related Faulkner Reports
• Vendor
• Applications
• Environment
• Support
• Pricing
• Competitors
• Web Links 

Description

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Oracle GlassFish Server, formerly known as the Sun Java System Application Server,
is an
application development architecture used by developers to create Java applications and Web services.

The current release of Glassfish Server is 4.1.1.

GlassFish Server offers a number of benefits for Java developers, including:

• Improved developer productivity
• Better runtime performance
• Clustering and high availability
• Centralized administration
• A single GlassFish Server domain server
  can manage multiple instances running simultaneously in multiple
  clusters

Oracle GlassFish Server is an efficient model for developing and deploying production-level applications.

Glassfish Server keeps its footprint as small as possible by loading only modules required to service deployed applications,
thus improving startup time and reducing resource utilization.

Importantly, Glassfish is "certified" as interoperable with Oracle Fusion
Middleware products.

Applications

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Oracle Glassfish Server provides Java application developers with a
feature-rich environment, including:

Java EE 7 with Clustering – Application clusters
can be provisioned dynamically. One GlassFish Server domain server can manage
multiple instances running multiple clusters at the same time.

New Development Model – GlassFish Server runs on the OSGi runtime so that modular features can be
added as necessary. Developers also have the option to create hybrid applications using OSGi
services from Java EE Applications or using Java EE services from OSGi
services.

Multiple Developer "Tooling"
Options – Eclipse and NetBeans are supported, as well as the following
tools: GUI, command line interface (CLI), Maven, Ant, RESTful, API, and
others.

Multi-Language Support – Glassfish Server is available in English,
French, German, Spanish, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese,
Korean, and Brazilian Portuguese – aiding multi-national collaborative
development efforts.

Glassfish Server Control – Server Control improves the manageability
of production deployments via the following tools:

• Monitoring Scripting Client enables the creation
  of custom monitoring scripts using fine-grained probes.
• Domain Backup and Recovery enables scheduled, automated backups of live domain servers.
• Performance Tuner delivers up to a 300 percent performance improvement over
  an out-of-the-box configuration.
• Active Cache for Glass Fish permits the replacement of in-memory replication with
  Oracle Coherence for more robust, flexible high availability.
• Oracle Access Manager integration allows single sign-on of applications and services.
• Load Balancer Web Server Plug-in & Installer
  can help balance application load across cluster instances, and provide for smart failover on instance failure.

GlassFish Server 4.1.1

Within the latest version, which included several bug fixes, GlassFish Server 4.1.1 offers the following
updated components:

• Jersey 2.21 (JAX-RS 2.0.1 aka JAX-RS 2.0 rev A)
• Weld 2.2.13.Final (CDI 1.2)
• MQ 5.1.1-b02 (JMS 2.0.1)
• Tyrus 1.11 (WebSocket 1.1 )
• Mojarra 2.2.12
• EclipseLink 2.6.1-RC1
• Grizzly 2.3.23
• HK2 2.4.0-b31
• JBatch Runtime 1.0.1-b09
• JSON-P RI 1.0.4

Environment

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GlassFish Server Open Source Edition Release 4.1 requires Oracle JDK 7, or
Oracle JDK 8 Update 60 or later. It is recommended that any machine that is hosting a
GlassFish Server DAS or server instance have a minimum of 1 GB RAM. The installation sizes vary depending on
the configuration, but the approximate amount of disk space used by GlassFish Server 4.1 is
250 MB (full profile) or 175 MB (Web profile).

Support

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With its origins as an open source program, one of the primary virtues of
Glassfish Server has been Oracle support. Similar to its treatment of other open
source programs inherited from Sun, like OpenSolaris and OpenOffice, Oracle will
"no longer release future major releases of Oracle GlassFish
Server with commercial support – specifically Oracle GlassFish Server 4.x
with commercial Java EE 7 support will not be released."¹

Pricing

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Oracle GlassFish Server 4.1.1 is an open-source release that is available from the GlassFish download
page.  

Competitors

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• IBM WebSphere
• Oracle WebLogic
• WildFly (formerly JBoss Application Server)

Web Links

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• IBM: http://www.ibm.com
• GlassFish: https://glassfish.java.net/index.html
• Oracle: http://www.oracle.com/
• WildFly: http://www.wildfly.org/

References

¹
Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols. "Oracle Abandons Commercial Support for Glassfish
JEE Server." ZDNet. November 7, 2013.

About the Author

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Karen M. Spring is a staff editor for
Faulkner Information Services, tracking high-tech industries, including network
security, ERP, CRM, network management, Internet security, and software tools.
She writes regularly on high-tech topics for publications in the k-12 and higher
education industry. Previously, Ms. Spring was a marketing specialist for two
computer distributors, working closely with such clients as 3Com, IBM, Okidata,
Unisys, and Acer.

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