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Java DB is now part of Sun's JDK

Thursday Jun 15, 2006

Pure fiction or reality? well, this is one of the two and yes it has become a reality! - It is a very exciting event indeed to have an Open Source Java Database System bundled into Sun's *latest* 1.6 JDK (Mustang build 88 to be more precised), and at no cost.

Java DB is based on Apache Derby and is Sun's redistribution of this last one.

It is a fully transactional, Java technology-based relational database with support for open standards such as SQL, JDBC, Java EE, Java ME CDC – concurrent users, triggers, Java stored procedures and encryptable databases, it is only 2 MB and free! Java DB is based on an Apache project with a strong and growing community which includes developers from Sun and IBM.

Sun's JDK 1.6 Build 88 is now available at http://download.java.net/jdk6/binaries/

You will find the distribution of Java DB under the 'db' directory of the main JDK install.

The release of Java DB bundled with the JDK is a 10.2 Alpha version. See David Van couvering's weblog entry regarding database upgrade limitation and how to get support from Sun and/or the Apache Derby comunity.

This allows Java developers to build applications even more rapidly and easily by having access to a Java Database which implements many features from the latest JDBC4 API Specification, directly out of the JDK.

Java DB is easy to use and can run embedded as part of your application, as well as in a client/server topology. It can be deployed via Java Web Start, compressed down to around ~650KB and easily embeddable into a web browser as a Java plug-in extension.

Congratulations to all the persons involved who made this possible!

[9] Comments

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Posted at 05:32PM Jun 15, 2006 by forsini in Derby
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Whoa! This is pretty big news. No more having to download, setup, configure, and deploy MySQL for development projects. -M

Posted by Moazam on June 15, 2006 at 06:29 PM PDT #

Excellent job!! Congratulations to Java DB team.

Posted by Raul on June 15, 2006 at 07:06 PM PDT #

This is actually pretty silly. Has the expert group signed off on this? Is there any spec document that says that java6 will include a full db? What about other licensees who want to ship their own DB as part of the core platform? What's the justification for this perplexing decision?

Posted by Hani Suleiman on June 15, 2006 at 07:43 PM PDT #

@ Hani Suleiman, We're talking about Sun's JDK here. Java DB is not being added to Java SE 1.6 "per-se" as far as the specifications are concerned - Java DB is not part of the JRE (for instance).

Posted by Francois Orsini on June 15, 2006 at 11:24 PM PDT #

It's beyond silly. Alpha quality code in the JDK?!? Cloudscape? Cloudscape DB that *NO ONE* including IBM (who got it with the acquisition of Informix) was able to salvage! All the way to where IBM had to get their PR "donate" the code to Apache! This is what you're putting in the JDK? Hani this is where you come in to speak for the community, ask questions and as loud as you can, please. Not to mention the dramatic increase in footprint (in the jdk). The worst part is since now it's part of the JDK, I *guarantee* it will be actually used somewhere in the JDK. Thus ushering devs/users into a nightmarish hell. Whether it's backwards compatibility, derby vs. javadb class conflicts in code or the poor quality of this release. Pull it back out before it before I switch to Harmony.

Posted by Pete Gonzalez on June 16, 2006 at 12:52 AM PDT #

The current JDK 1.6 build 88 version is *not* GA Production yet FYI. Again from previous comments, Java DB is *not* part of the JVM per-se; It is part of the JDK and provide some early implementation for many of the JDBC4 features. Apache Derby (which Java DB is based on) is a very strong and growing community. There is no "dramatic" increase in the JDK footprint. Java DB as it is bundled is not into some default classpath or used within the JDK; hence there is no backwards compatibility issues.

Posted by Francois Orsini on June 16, 2006 at 01:25 AM PDT #

I for one would like to hear what you did (or are doing, or plan to do) to address the 500+ bugs/issues in derby; http://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/DERBY Is the JDK no longer production quality? Why not "bundle" it like you bundle Netbeans, outside of the JDK?

Posted by Pete Gonzalez on June 17, 2006 at 01:31 AM PDT #

Every product has bugs and not just a few - every bug has a priority to identify the major/blockers ones versus the less important ones to deal with. Apache Derby which is Java DB based on goes through a lot of testing and does produce stable releases - The 10.2 version is an alpha version right now and the JDK 1.6 is not at a production level yet. The size of Netbeans is not the size of Java DB and this last one offer an implementation of many of the JDBC4 features which allowed Java developer to experiment with an early implementation of JDBC4 right out from the JDK - Again, the Java DB engine is small and can be used by developers right out of the box with JDBC4 being supported - You're not forced to use it either but as a developer myself I find this convenient to have a Java database system I can use as part of the JDK which implements JDBC4 already and at not cost by the same occasion. You still have the choice of benefiting from it or not.

Posted by Francois Orsini on June 18, 2006 at 06:22 PM PDT #

Very cool Francois. This is not part of the JRE as Francois said but it's a "Sun-blessed" version of derby bundled in the JDK for developers to prototype, test or even build upon. I like the integrated approach here, it doesn't mean you have to use it, or even ship it with you app, but it's there for you tested, polished and ready-to-use and best of all it's back by Sun, so you can file a bug against it on Sun bugs site, or at Apache. I like it, thanks to those that made this possible!

Posted by Krishna Devalumbi on June 18, 2006 at 09:48 PM PDT #