Today was the release of SailFin v2 (download, home, wiki) and its companion Sun GlassFish Communications Server 2.0 (download, home). SailFin v2 is a big release; it leverages GlassFish v2.1.1 (more tomorrow) and adds a number of features including high availability, rolling upgrade, flexible network topology, better overload protection, Diameter support, improved diagnosability, Java based DCR files for the load balancer, and more. I can't cover SailFin v2 properly but I'll collect some of the relevant links so you can follow them up.  Start with Binod's overview: SailFin v2 Released! and move from there:

Some of the major changes are:

• A new replica selection algorithm that improves scalability by easing load distribution after failure.
• Enhancements to the Converged Load Balancer to support writing DCR rules in Java.
• The ability to do rolling upgrades leverages session replication; see this example.
• Improved use of multihoming features for more flexible deployments. See Ramesh's writeup.
• Diameter support in Sun's for-fee AddOn; see details in Venu's many posts, including [1] and [2].
• Improved load protection.  See Robert's one pager and Sankar's work on JMX Notification.

As part of the release, the team has posted a number of new entries, including:

• Next is what? (Prasad)
• Subscribing to user state using Sun Diameter Sh API (Venu)
• Setup and Configure Diameter on SailFin (Naman Mehta)
• Diameter Administration on SailFIn 2.0 (Yamini KB)
• SailFin v2 Released (Srikanth Anandal)
• CLB Enhancements in SailFin 2.0 (Kshitiz Saxena)
• Overload Protection in SailFin: What's new in 2.0 (Rampsarathy)
• Tips and Tricks of SailFin HA (Bhavani Shankar)
• Multihoming in SailFin. (Ramesh)

• TA entries tagged SailFin,
• Prasad's earlier roundup: "SailFin 2.0 is Around the Corner!"
• Sreeram's notes on SailFin amazon images.
• How to write Conference App in 15 lines of nicely formatted code!

Finally, a list for PR/Press reports:

• Sun Communications Server Speaks VoIP (The H Open Source)
• Barron's, BusinesWire.

Note - GlassFish v2.1.1 is also available from Sun's Download Center and from the Community Site. More on that release tomorrow. And the OpenMQ 4.4 (and 4.4.1 RC1) are available from here.

Diameter support in SailFin is progressing well. Venu has blogged about steps to use Sh api for updating user profile information in HSS (eg: Open IMS). In another post, he explains using onine charging in SailFin. Also, Sailfin V2 has crossed the SCF (soft code freeze) last week and is progressing towards the release in October 2009. You can download V2 b23 here.

The Diameter protocol (RFC 3588) is designed to provide an Authentication, Authorization and Accounting (AAA) framework for applications. SailFin will be adding support for Diameter protocol by 2nd half of CY2009. Sh (Subscriber profile interface), Rf (Offline Charging interface), Ro (Online charging interface) will be available. Take a look at Venu's post for details of Sh api support, JavaDocs and example code. Also, Naman has written a good overview of Diameter Protocol.

The Diameter protocol is designed to provide an Authentication, Authorization and Accounting (AAA) framework for applications. The Diameter base protocol is defined by RFC 3588. The 3GPP standards body has adopted Diameter as the primary signaling protocol for AAA and mobility management in the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS).

In an IMS architecture, an application server like SailFin will use Diameter to communicate with HSS (Home Subscriber Server). HSS is a central subscriber database that performs AAA and helps in locating the user. Traffix systems announced that it will officially join the GlassFish Partner Program and Traffix’s OpenBloX(TM) Diameter will become a preferred Diameter platform for Project SailFin. OpenBloX Diameter integration with SailFin will be facilitated by a J2EE Connector 1.5 resource adapter and a Diameter java library.

MS6 of SailFin is available for download. Please download and give it a try. And previous entries on Sailfin at TheAquarium are here.