If you missed Kaj's announcement in the splashing news commotion at the latest MySQL Conference, then you may be interested to get this information again. There was a piece of news that should be extremely important for all the users. MySQL server binaries used to be split between Enterprise and Community, and they were released with separate schedules. Not anymore. Starting from April 2009, the MySQL Community and Enterprise editions are built from the same code, and they are released with the same frequency.

There were rumors about the two editions being treated differently. Since we are talking about it, let me assure you that this is not the case. Both editions go through the same tests, and even more so now, since they come from the same tree. Until version 5.0.81, there was a separate tree for Community (with extra features), but now there is only one.

For every bug fix release, both editions are released on the same day.

Another difference that has disappeared is the version number. Previously, even numbers were for Enterprise, odd ones for Community. Now, every version number identifies both the Community and Enterprise edition.

Enjoy the best bits from MySQL. download at will!

This entry is quite longer than usual; it started as a short update on the recent 2.1 release of xVM OpsCenter but it quickly grew to cover other intertwined announcements. I could have done several separate posts but a single one seemed more useful, so...

Start with Steve's What's Up with xVM or in the Virtualization Page at Sun.com; the 5 inter-related areas down from there are: VirtualBox, xVM Server, xVM Ops Center, LDOMs and VDI.

VirtualBox (Community; Sun) is a Type 2 ("hosted" VM) virtualization solution. VirtualBox has a very fast release cycle (see ChangeLog) and it regularly adds features and performance and addresses bugs. The last release was 2.2.2 and it has received very positive press reviews (eWeek 1 and eWeek 2). VirtualBox is a solid hit; check the latest Google Trends; also see entries tagged VirtualBox.

xVM Server (Community previously here but now at Xen@OpenSolaris; Sun) is a Type 1 ("native" VM) virtualization solution based on the work of Xen Project and this is the area that seems to be in most flux. Steve addressed some of the points in the above-mentioned entry and later in Free Hypervisor Options. Quoting from the first entry on feedback from the beta program:

As a result of these and many other observations, we concluded that a general purpose, multi-node solution is required. Thus, we refocused our efforts around use-cases where Ops Center becomes the central way to manage the hypervisor and the underlying hardware. In addition, we've started on a trajectory where we will converge the xVM Server and OpenSolaris lines so that exactly the same codebase is used for both.

xVM Ops Center (Users, Sun) is Sun's unified systems management tool - it provides Management and Monitoring of pysical and virtual assets, provisioning, patch automation and IT compliance. The latest release supports power management and interacts with Sun's ILOM; see Availability of 2.1, Change Page and Demo. Also check the Free Training and the Integration with Halcyon Neuron.

Logical Domains (LDOM) (Community; Sun) allows the grouping of system resources into logical groups to provide very cheap, built-in (no hypervisor) virtualization for Sun's CMT systems. The scope of this technology is more limited than the previous virtualization solutions but it is very efficient and meshes very well with Sun's hardware story. A (separate recent announcement was that of Solaris 10 Branded Zones, an addition to previous Linux and Solaris 8 and 9 zones; see Bob's Zones vs LDOMs for an overview of the two technologies.

Finally there is VDI - Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (Sun). I think of it as SunRay meets VBox: the goal is to maximize IT infrastructure utilization and improve manageability of desktop deployments and the latest release, VDI 3.0, leverages VDI broker, VirtualBox and OpenStorage servers. ZDNet has a Positive Review that ends asking for more publicity on the technology, so... check Markus' series: Installation, Configuration and Usage, Claudia's Demo Configuration Instructions, Deployment Guide, and the Coralville Adoption Story.

Hope this helps to understand how the 5 pieces relate to each other. This entry is also a good example of how blogs, wikis and other self-publishing tools accelerate information flow within a corporation. All the writeups mentioned above are mini-essays on the different topics; they are all published directly by the authors and cross-linked via the internet. Add Blogs.Sun.Com and an Internet Search Tool and I can grab a thread and construct the story... And, if I get it wrong, somebody will correct me... It is not fool-proof, but try to replicate this by registering into N**M mailing lists!

Of course, you need some significant level of transparency in the organization; otherwise one needs to get a legal approval to post anything! The alternative is to try to replicate the internet dynamics within the corporation, which may work for a very large company like IBM, but would not work for us at Sun, and does not help in communicating directly to the customer.

Now back to our short blog entries...

Yet another round of links for the GlassFish Portfolio launch. Some are links I had missed, other ones appeared recently. Note also we now have GlassFish Portfolio release notes published.

Press Articles
• Seeing Through Sun's Glassfish (Information Week)
• Sun представила открытую web-платформу (linuxcenter.ru)
• Sun's GlassFish Portfolio Adds More Open Source (InternetNews.com)
• Sun releases GlassFish web platform (vnunet.com)
• Sun’s GlassFish Portfolio Could Change Middleware Game (idevnews.com)
• GlassFish gets LAMP stack and multimedia add-on (CRN.com.au)
• Sun unveils Glassfish portfolio (ITExaminer.com)
• http://ca.sys-con.com/node/838245 (AjaxWorld.com)
• Sun Releases Enterprise Open Source Platform (ebizQ)
• Sun to integrate GlasFish with LAMP stack (ciol.com)
• Sun beefs up GlassFish app server with integrated LAMP stack (eChannelLine)
• Sun GlassFish Portfolio chez Sun (Toolinux)

General blogs
• Glassfish Portfolio (niq)
• GlassFish Enterprise Service Bus Multimedia (SDN Channel)
• New Sun Glassfish Portfolio (CamelCase)
• (Marketing memos)
• GlassFish ESB and OpenESB - Interview and demo (RedMonk)
• Web Space Server - Localization (Portal Post)
• Incredible portfolio of web servers! (Web Tier)
• Adding content to portal page : The easy way (Praskah)
• Jersey 1.0.2 is released (Earthly Powers)
• Learn About GlassFish Portfolio (Dixie, docs)

GlassFish Enterprise Manager
• Sun GlassFish Portfolio が発表されました。いろんな情報があります。 (Ogino)
• SNMP monitoring in GlassFish (Marc)
• New Glassfish Portfolio (Eric Bruno)

Read earlier coverage here and there.

Some 24 hours after the launch, more coverage of the GlassFish Portfolio launch.

Press Articles
• Light-weight, open-source Sun GlassFish Portfolio (TSS)
• Sun realigns software around GlassFish Portfolio (SDTimes)
• Themes discussed at Sun GlassFish Portfolio debut (TechTarget)
• Nyílt forrású vállalati alkalmazásplatformmal jelentkezett a Sun Microsystems (HWSW.hu)
• SUN’s Glassfish Portfolio is a major shift to commercial open source business models. (The Forrester Blog)
• Sun's Answer To LAMP: GlassFish Portfolio (InformationWeek)

General blogs
• GlassFish v2.1: A Complete Picture (Harpreet)
• "10 reasons why Nuxeo is using GlassFish" presentation (Nuxeo)
• SIP development modules via Auto-update (Vince)
• Sun GlassFish Portfolio Released (SDN Program News)
• Content Management System in Glassfish Web Space Server 10.0 (Prakash)
• Writing your first application router with SailFin (Binod)
• SIP Extension Headers in SailFin (Sankar)
• Sailfin in detail : Part 1 app-name (Prsad)
• OK - where do I start if I need to tune GlassFish? (Kim)
• Performance Monitor enters Sun's GlassFish offerings (Shreedhar)
• Performance Advisor : VM Alerts (Nandini)
• GlassFish Portfolio related podcasts (Bistro!)
• Sun includes GlassFish ESB in GlassFish Portfolio (Hari)
• GlassFish Portfolio with GlassFish ESB officially announced (Mark White)
• Web Space Server 10 Adopts Update Center (Joe)

GlassFish Enterprise Manager
• GlassFish SNMP Monitoring (Rajeshwar)
• GlassFish Value-Ad Feature Tuner (Nachiappan)
• Tuner ScreenCast (Nachiappan)
• Performance Advisor Installation and Overview (Screencast by Anissa)

Earlier coverage is here.

It's early after the launch but here's already a first batch of content covering GlassFish Portfolio. Expect some updates to this blog later in the day as well as more entries in the next few days.

Press Articles
• Sun offers integrated Web platform (InfoWorld)
• Avec Portfolio, Sun taille GlassFish pour contrer JBoss (LeMagIT, in French)
• Sun Takes GlassFish, Industry's Most Downloaded Application Server, to New Heights With Integrated LAMP Stack (Press Release)
• 搜斧 - Sun GlassFish Portfolio Released
• Sun Drives Huge Growth in Adoption of GlassFish, Industry's Most Downloaded Application Server (Press Release)

General blogs
• GlassFish Production Deployments & Enterprise Manager (John Clingan)
• The New GlassFish Portfolio! (Liz Matthews)
• GlassFish Portfolio en bref (Bistro!)
• Sun GlassFish Web Space Server 10.0: Now Available! (The Portal Post)
• GlassFish - immár Portfolioban (Peter, in Hungarian)
• Sun GlassFish Portfolio and Open Source (Kevin)
• SailFin : Develop your own applications using templates (Bhavani)
• SailFin V1: Step by step guide to get started. (Binod)
• Introducing Sun GlassFish Portfolio (Scripting blog)
• 介绍Sun GlassFish Portfolio (The Aquarium ZH)
• Converged Load-Balancer(CLB) Whitepaper and Screencast (Kshitiz)
• GlassFish grows up! (Sun Student Connection)
• Feb 17th Chinese Webinar - GlassFish Portfolio (Judy/Jiandong)

GlassFish Enterprise Manager
• Introducing GlassFish Performance Tuner (Ken Paulsen)
• GlassFish Performance Advisor - Install and setup (Siraj)
• JDBC Pool Manager - Steady Pool Size Tuning (Shalini)
• JDBC Pool Manager - Max Pool Size Tuning (Shalini)
• GlassFish SNMP J2EE MIB Presentation (Olivier)
• Browsing the Glassfish SNMP J2EE-MIB (Olivier)
• GlassFish SNMP Master Agent Integration (Olivier)
• GlassFish SNMP security (Olivier)
• GlassFish Performance Advisor - Managing Rotated Log Files (Siraj)
• GlassFish Performance Advisor - Log Entry Alert (Siraj)
• Performance Advisor Installation and Overview - Screencast,live demo and more (Anissa)
• Configuration of SNMP Monitoring in Glassfish Enterprise Manager (Sankar)

Sparky is growing up! Today, Sun announced the Sun GlassFish Portfolio (PR) the Sun GlassFish Communications Server (SailFin) and the Sun GlassFish Mobility Platform.

The key components in the GlassFish Portfolio are the Sun GlassFish Enterprise Server (including OpenMQ), the Sun GlassFish ESB (with OpenESB), the Sun GlassFish Web Space Server (nee WebSynergy, leveraging GlassFish and Liferay) and the Sun GlassFish Web Stack, which includes supported and optimized versions of Apache Web Server, Memcached and other popular Web applications.

Full details of the GlassFish Portfolio are at its Home page. The GetIt tab has a very good table with all the features, services and pricing - check it out!

Sun also issued a Release highlighting adoption of the GlassFish products in companies from Telcos (T-Mobile), Health (Medavie Blue Cross) and startups (TravelMuse). Check the PR for a full list, plus our Adoption Stories and Sun's more formal Customer References.

As in past events, we are going to post a number of blog entries related to different facets of the products announced today; we will (attempt to) use the tag GlassFishPortfolio consistently to help search through them. We are also going to host a set of short (10') presentations at TheAquarium Online to cover this material, with the usual recordings for later playback.

Here are some recent news that will have an impact on many of our GlassFish users:

SailFin is the Open Source Communications Server that is based on the GlassFish Server. We launched the effort with Ericsson back in May '07 with first builds in June '07 (see all SailFin-tagged entries) and we are nearing the first release.

A Communication Server requires new functionality like SIP-support but also has strong requirements on availability and quality of service. Some of this functionality is done in SailFin and some in the underlying GlassFish v2.1; both releases will be available in a few weeks so expect an increased coverage. Binod published several in early December ([1], [2]) and Sreeram published a couple of entries on SailFin just before the Holiday break.

Sreeram's first entry is an Short Summary of news including a pointer to the Eclipse-based Ericsson Service Development Studio, and the IPTV trials at Sonaecom. Sreeram's second post is a substantial Technical Overview covering its core architecture and administration, its subsystems, the development and deployment model, and the new SIP and Carrier-Grade features.

Finally, pencil-in Jan 29th, 2009 for a SailFin Webinar where we will provide some background to SIP and these new converged web applications in addition to a presentation on SailFin and demos.

Yesterday was the launch of Sun's xVM portfolio. This is a big deal for Sun and I think it will also have an impact in the industry; it is nice to see all these pieces starting to fall in place. I'll just provide a bit of context and let you follow the links.

There are 4 pieces to the portfolio: xVM Server, a bare-metal hypervisor that is easy to manage, xVM Ops Center, an "internet-scale" (i.e. oogles of machines) management product for it, xVM VirtualBox, virtualization on your desktop/laptop, and xVM VDI, virtualization of Desktops. The Launch Site does a good job; it includes the customary interviews with execs (but not just Sun, also Microsoft, Intel and CSC Financial Services), plus demos and overviews of all the key pieces. Also see SDN News.

Sun and MS are working together again - like they did with Metro - and they have agreed to interoperability between their Virtualization offerings - see the xVMBlog and reports at OStatic and BusinessWire. The press has done a pretty good coverage of the general launch, see InternetNews, VNUnet, TheWhir, TradingMarkets.

There are many other blogs on this at BSC, hopefully all tagged as xVM.

Added - Reflections and thank-yous Steve; the HPC watercooler folks Do a Recap that points to the community site at OpenxVM.ORG; and Marc writes about the Implications of xVM for HPC; the VirtualBox folks do a Summary.

The OpenDS project just announced its first non-Sun contributor: Benjamin Damm from Brighton Consulting. The OpenDS guys are doing a very good job at community building: they have good documentation, simple build instructions, a list of Bite-Sized Bugs (Benjamin tackled one of them)... A good description of how to contribute can be fond in this blog and also at the OpenDS Developers Page.

Virtual hosts (or servers) are very popular and GlassFish supports them (see SJS AS 9.0 Doc Book). The support for virtual hosts has been improving in GF V2 and early in the cycle Jean-Francois explained how to Dynamically Add them. Now Jan explains the concept of a virtual server docroot and the new flexible mechanisms in the latest builds

Check Jan's blog for details. The SJS AS 9.0 docbook has a good chapter on this topic; just note that it uses the term "virtual server" instead of "virtual host" and "http-listener" instead of "connector".

The OpenDS team is quietly delivering. Their Initial Launch was met mostly with positive responses ([1], [2]) with some exceptions ([3], [4]). This week's addition are Weekly Builds, which is exactly in the right direction to encourage participation. The team's main blog is here; recent entries include the Introduction to OpenDS, an Overview of LDAP, Java and Performance, New Features in OpenDS.