Apache TomEE 8.0 Reaches First Milestone -- ADTmag

Apache TomEE 8.0 Reaches First Milestone

By John K. Waters
November 14, 2018

The latest version of the of the Apache TomEE application server, TomEE 8.0, has reached Milestone 1 (M1) status, the community announced last week. The new version is a major update and will be the first to provide support for Java EE 8 and Eclipse Jakarta EE.

Among other changes, version 8.0 introduces support for two new specifications: JSON-B, a standard binding layer for converting Java objects to and from JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) messages; and the Java EE Security API (JSR 375), which simplifies and modernizes how all the security is handled in the container.

The addition of JSON-B was a much-needed spec to provide the binding between JSON and POJOs, which is mandatory for the development of modern REST APIs, said Roberto Cortez, senior software engineer at Tomitribe, in a blog post. And both David Blevins, Tomitribe founder and CEO (and founder of the Apache TomEE, OpenEJB, and Geronimo projects) and Jean-Louis Monterio, Tomitribe's Senior Java Enterprise Software Architect were active participants in the JSR 375 spec.

Cortez listed the updates to existing specs, which include:

CDI 2.0 (Context and Dependency Injection for Java) with Asynchronous Events.
JAX-RS 2.1 (JSR 370) with Server-Sent Events and a Reactive Client.
Servlet 4.0 (JSR 369), which aligns with HTTP/2.
Bean Validation 2.0 (JSR 380), which introduces support for Java 8 APIs, like the new DateTime API and Optionals.
Improvements to JSON-P and JavaServer Faces

Because this isn't the final version, the EE Security API implementation is missing, Cortez advised, but most of these new features in the M1 Release are available for users to try. That missing security API is expected in the next milestones, but may not be available until the final version is released, he said.

TomEE 7.1 was released in September and included support for Eclipse MicroProfile 1.2. TomEE 8.0 will include support for MicroProfile 1.3, Cortez said.

He added that the community is actively trying to improve the release process. "Instead of having big bang releases with long cycles," he said, "we would like to move to a shorter release cycle with smaller changes. An approach that is now also adopted by the Java platform."

The binaries can be downloaded now from the Apache TomEE Web site. Cortez added a warning that this release is not yet recommended for production usage. Still, you are encouraged to try it out in your development environments and asked that users report any issues to the TomEE project.

About the Author

John K. Waters is the editor in chief of a number of Converge360.com sites, with a focus on high-end development, AI and future tech. He's been writing about cutting-edge technologies and culture of Silicon Valley for more than two decades, and he's written more than a dozen books. He also co-scripted the documentary film Silicon Valley: A 100 Year Renaissance, which aired on PBS. He can be reached at [email protected].