The latest Sun WebServer is now available (Home Page, Release Notes, Direct Download). This release includes the latest Java Web Container from GLassFIsh and was used in the Record-breaking SPECweb 2005 benchmark on a Sun SPARC Enterprise T5220.

See the Release writeups from CVR, Joe and Jyri, and the Benchmark reports from CVR and BMseer. Information on a number of benchmarks is available at the T5220 Benchmark Page.

A tip from Krishna: How to Run Metro on Sun WebServer 7 Update 1

This takes advantage that Metro only depends on Servlet 2.4. Thanks to Vivek for the tip

Earlier this week Sun announced new machines using the UltraSPARC T2. Many of the key contributors have written about them and Allan has a Nice Overview that links to the key posts. The new systems show great performance; check out BMSeer's Posts and the official T5220 page. One result we want to highlight is the Web Tier Benchmark posted using the Sun WebServer (using the GlassFish Java Web Tier). Check out CVR's Writeup and BMSeer's Comparisons.

Congratulations to the Sun WebServer team! And to everybody who got the systems out to market!

Sun Java System Web Server 7.0 update 1 is now available for download (the preview version had been available for a few months). New in this release is: • Performance and stability improvements • Out-of-box Java support for Servlets 2.5, JSP 2.1, JSF 1.2, and more • Support for Java SE 5.0 and 6 • Support for NetBeans IDE 5.5.1 • Administration interface support for FastCGI

You'll notice that the main features are Java-related. Specifically, the product is now at the Java EE 5 specification level which means that any web application that runs on GlassFish now also runs on Sun's Web Server 7.0 Update 1 (the implementation is actually taken straight from GlassFish). On the more technical side of things, you can use dependency injection in the web tier.

When released in early 2007, Web Server 7.0 enjoyed an excellent review and has been powering a whole new set of demanding web sites (including the one serving you this content). Any question, see the dedicated forum.

Java profilers are really useful tools in identifying performance bottlenecks and memory leaks in your Java application. Setting up a profiler to profile a Java web application running in a web or application server usually requires more steps than for profiling a simple commandline application. In this article, Yamini shows you how simple it is to integrate NetBeans Profiler with Web Server 7.0.

ServerWatch has a very positive review of Sun WebServer 7.0 that concludes: In summary, Sun Web Server is generally two times as fast as Apache... The Sun Web Server is fast, flexible, scalable, and a downright joy to run. Other Web servers may still have some benefits, mainly because of administrator familiarity, but if performance and ease of management are paramount, Web Server is the way to go. You can Download and use Sun WebServer 7.0. Development and Deployment is free; Sun's revenue is from Support.

CVR and Marina report on the Technology Preview for Sun WebServer 7.0 UR1. The main improvement in this release is the replacement of the Java Web Tier container with that of GlassFish, conforming to the JavaEE 5 specifications. This means, for example, that things like the Sun Web Developer Pack will run on it. Check CVR's announcement and download the release from here. Also thanks to Marina for the tip.

Previously, Marina and Seema showed you how to run Roller on Web Server 6.1. They've teamed up again to tell you how to run Roller 3.0 on the recently released Web Server 7.0! You can read all about it here.

Here are two recent entries showing how to use fastCGI to enable using Scripting Languages in the new Sun WebServer 7.0. First, check Natarajan detailed blog to learn how to use the new PHP AddOn. Then you can also check Seema and Marina's very detailed article to use Ruby on Rails. All TheAquarium entries related to the Sun WebServer use the WebServer tag. For details on the Sun WebServer 7.0, check the Product Page and the SDN Developer page. The download is available here and the documentation here.

The Sun WebServer 7.0 final release (GA or FCS as often described at Sun) is now available (download is free, support can be purchased). One major emphasis of the release is cluster administration, but it also includes many new features ranging from ECC support to a fully scriptable CLI to support for many Web 2.0 languages and applications. Check out earlier TA entries as well as the blogs accompanying the release including Manish's Top 10 Reasons, and Jyri and Sriram's blogs. Congratulations to the WebServer team on this long-awaited release!

PHP (home page, tutorial, online manual) is very popular language - see this Netcraft survey - for writing Web Applications. A common combination includes Linux, Apache WebServer, MySQL and PHP (thus the term LAMP), but PHP is usable from many other containers. Joe's recent Technical Article explains how to use Sun's WebServer with PHP using different connecting technologies, including as a CGI engine, using FastCGI and as an NSAPI Plugin. Many more PHP-related articles at TheAquarium here.

Rahul has an interesting series of detailed blogs that show how to use different JVM-based scripting languages to write Servlets on Sun's WebServer 7.0 (download) even when using plain J2SE 5 (this is easier in Java SE 6 through JSR 223). The series includes a prologue providing some common code for all the languages and then specific and very detailed entries for jRuby, jScheme, Rhyno and Sleep. And, Now For Something Completely Different... All these use the in-memory JVM from the WebServer, but... Rahul also shows how to use FastCGI to call native Ruby directly.

Did you know that there is a TCL interpreter in Sun's Web Server 7.0? And it is put to good use, as shown by True Blue in this collection of detailed blog entries on WADM, starting with why TCL was chosen (this was way before jRuby came into focus at Sun), going through parts II (global variables), III (ACL), IV (log analyzer), V (access to Java objects), VI (parsing httpd.config), VII (faking a file system), and the last - so far - VIII (extensions).

I could not find a concise quote for the Monty Python eurojoke, but here is one set of fly-in-the-soup jokes.

ECC (Elliptic Curve Cryptography) is a new, cryptographic protocol that is very appealing when security needs are high or computational power is limited (like mobile devices) and is gaining backing in the industry. The latest Sun WebServer (7.0 Technology Preview) has Support for ECC, and so do GlassFish - experimental so far -, and Java. In his latest blog, Jyri reports on actual measurements of the connection cost for different security protocols on Sun's WebServer and shows Big Improvements for ECC. Check it out!

The team of Sun's WebServer is a close relative of Project GlassFish and I feel a bit guilty I've not been able to keep up with all their interesting blogs in the last couple of months - maybe I'll be able to do some about it next week during Sun's USA shutdown...