Earlier this year Sun.Com introduced product starting with hardware products like this Sun Firex X4600. Rating is now available also for Software Products like SJS AS 9.1 UR, the companion to GFv2 UR1 (Announcement). So far SJSAS has 5 stars but that's with just one review; if you want to contribute your experience, go check out the Rate and Review Page

JavaWorld has an article entitled JBoss, Geronimo, or Tomcat? Three open source Java application servers compared. It's unfortunate that they did not include GlassFish but Masoud has attempted to address that through his latest blog entry; Check it out!

We probably should write some comparison articles of our own and submit them for publication. Maybe after GFv2 UR1 goes out we will find the time to do it.

Added: Also see the discussion at TheServerSide.COM, and the comparisons at TSS and Wikipedia.

One of the goals of GlassFish v2 is to incorporate all the features in SJS AS 8.2 EE (Enterprise Edition). For the most part this means adding features that everybody would want, but some features are mostly for backwards compatibility, or because of specialized needs. The tradeoffs are acheived via the notion of Profiles. Shing Wai has posted a good Overview of how the different Security features map to GF v1, GF v2 and its profiles and SJS AS 8.2 EE. His summary table is very useful, check it out!

GlassFish V1 UR1 patch 1 was pushed out just before the Xmas break (see announcement). This build corresponds to the SJS AS 9.0 UR1 patch 1 that is in Java EE 5 SDK Update 2; it should have been posted at the same time, sorry for the delay.

Pat writes about the Availability of the OpenSSO Agent for SJS AS 8.2. All pieces are available, including: Sources, the Architecture Document and the Nightly Builds. This time I didn't have to ask about the GlassFish agent. Pat knew the question would be there and says: "stay tuned!".

There are many reasons why Sun is supporting Open Source community projects like GlassFish, including System Sales and rapid Java EE 5 Platform Adoption, but plain Revenue is also important. Revenue comes from multiple sources including training and support, and Tim just wrote a blog explaining his inside view on Sun's commercial support of our distribution of GlassFish: SJS AS 9.0.

The support plans for SJS AS 9.x from Sun are being updated as I type, but a good start is this page on Sun's overall Software Service Plans and the move focused Developers Services Page. Or feel free to contact me or other Sun engineers and we will direct you to the right place.

Alex just wrote about the SpecJ Results using Sun's distribution from Project GlassFish V1 (SJS AS 9.0). The Results are from May '06 but Alex didn't know about them and, since he may not be alone, they seem worth repeating. Do check Tom's writeup on the Relevance of these Results. One of the areas we are working in GlassFish V2 is performance, so expect improvements by the time we are done with this release.

Java has always had good Unicode support (see for example here) but it is still possible to get the error messages garbled... In a recent blog, Cheng Fang pointed to Multi-Byte Encoding Problems in GlassFish that have been fixed in recent releases. The nice thing about Continuous Improvement is that we can get these fixes to you in a very rapid manner, so you can get your word done (and let us know if the fix was not good enough!).

BTW, I just noticed that the Chinese Locale version of TheAquarium has not been updated since the summer. I'll find out more about it, but please let me know if you are interested in contributing. We also want to explore localized versions of the GlassFish Wiki.

There is now a NetBeans 5.0 Plug-In to develop, deploy and debug WebApps onto Sun's WebServer 7.0 Technology Preview. Mukesh and Marina's article shows How to Use the Plug-In , just note that the article was posted two weeks ago and it refers to the original TP, but TP2 was released yesterday.

The Java Web-Tier implementation used in Sun's WebServer 7.0 is from SJS AS 8.2 (based on J2EE 1.4) to match the rest of the Java Enterprise System, but WS 7.x has been designed to allow a quick rev into the Java EE 5 versions of these specifications (In contrast, WS 7.0 already includes JAX-WS 2.0).

For more information, check: Product Page, the Web Server hub at SDN, NetBeans' Web Server home page and the WS Forum.

I was talking with a friend last week and he was surprised when I mentioned that there was an active Maven repository with many GlassFish bits. Seems it is time for another recap of highlights of Project GlassFish...

• GF is an Open Source, Community Based implementation of Java EE 5. • Java EE 5 is a huge improvement over earlier J2EE versions (J1 Keynotes). • GF is Production Quality and has very Good Performance. • GF is delivered in SJS AS 9.0, Java EE 5 SDK, and NetBeans 5.5. • GF has already affected adoption and is getting analyst attention [1], [2]. • GF is used by other groups like in JEUS 6 Preview from TMaxSoft. • GF has many goodies, including Java DB and Java Blueprints. • GF is committed to your favorite framework. • GF is at the forefront of JPA adoption. • GF Web Services stack is very good and it is getting better and better. • GF's Grizzly delivers top Web Tier performance and flexibility. • GF has Developer Support, Training and more. • GF supports AJAX and Scripting. • GF has platform and tool SOA support, including JBI and BPEL. • GF is used directly for the official Reference Implementation of Java EE 5. • GF is the code base for the Sun Java System Application Server. • GF will incorporate the enterprise features available today in SJS AS 8.x. • Many components are in the Maven Repository; and more soon. • We are already working on the next releases (more).

Let me know if I am forgetting something and I'll update this list. Earlier summaries of Project GlassFish include Why GlassFish? and Misconceptions about GlassFish. In general, check TheAquarium for the latest news.