Eclipse GlassFish

Eclipse GlassFish
Name	Eclipse GlassFish
Developer	Eclipse Foundation; originally Sun Microsystems; Oracle Corporation
Released	2006
Latest release	(see project)
Programming language	Java
Operating system	Cross-platform
Genre	Application server; Java EE; Jakarta EE
License	Eclipse Public License; previously CDDL; GPL

Eclipse GlassFish is an open-source application server implementation for the Jakarta EE platform, providing a runtime for enterprise Java applications and web services. It originated from server projects at Sun Microsystems and evolved through stewardship by Oracle Corporation to the Eclipse Foundation project ecosystem. The server is used in conjunction with tools and projects such as NetBeans, Eclipse IDE, and cloud offerings from vendors including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform.

History

GlassFish traces its lineage to proprietary and open-source initiatives under Sun Microsystems during the era of Java Platform, Enterprise Edition and related efforts like Project GlassFish and the GlassFish Community. After Sun's acquisition by Oracle Corporation, stewardship passed into Oracle's Java EE efforts and coordination with standards bodies such as the Java Community Process and Eclipse Foundation. The transition to the Eclipse Foundation was part of a broader migration of enterprise Java stewardship, which involved projects like Jakarta EE and collaborations with vendors including Red Hat, IBM, and Payara Services Limited. Milestones included community releases, shifts in licensing from the Common Development and Distribution License to the Eclipse Public License, and alignment with specifications ratified by the Eclipse Jakarta EE Working Group and related committees.

Architecture and Components

Eclipse GlassFish implements a modular architecture based on components familiar to enterprise stacks: a servlet container, EJB container, web services stack, persistence layer, and management interfaces. Core runtime elements align with specifications from Jakarta Servlet, Jakarta RESTful Web Services, Jakarta Persistence, Jakarta Contexts and Dependency Injection, and Jakarta Enterprise Beans. Networking and HTTP handling draw on standards implemented by projects like Grizzly and integration with build tools such as Maven and Gradle for artifact management. Security subsystems integrate with Java Authentication and Authorization Service and can interoperate with identity providers used by OAuth and SAML deployments in enterprise environments with vendors like Okta and Keycloak.

Features and Standards Compliance

GlassFish focuses on standards compliance with Jakarta EE specifications, including implementations of Jakarta Servlet 4.0, Jakarta Server Pages, Jakarta WebSocket, Jakarta Transaction, and Jakarta Batch. It offers Java Persistence API compatibility through EclipseLink and supports JSON processing compliant with Jakarta JSON Processing and Jakarta JSON Binding. For web services, implementations adhere to JAX-RS and JAX-WS style APIs, integrating with tools and standards championed by organizations such as the OpenJDK community and the Jakarta EE Specification Committee. The server also provides management and observability features compatible with protocols and tooling from JMX, Prometheus, and OpenTelemetry.

Installation and Deployment

GlassFish can be installed on systems running distributions of Linux, Microsoft Windows, and macOS, and deployed in virtualized and containerized environments orchestrated by Docker and Kubernetes. Packaging supports deployment via Maven Central artifacts and integration with continuous delivery pipelines using systems like Jenkins, GitLab CI/CD, and GitHub Actions. Cloud-native deployment patterns leverage platforms and services from Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service, Google Kubernetes Engine, and Azure Kubernetes Service, and integrate with service meshes such as Istio and Linkerd for traffic management and observability.

Administration and Management

Administrative functions are exposed through an administrative console and a command-line toolset compatible with automation frameworks like Ansible, Terraform, and Chef. Runtime configuration supports domain and instance management, resource pooling, connection pool tuning, and JMS provider configuration interoperable with brokers such as Apache ActiveMQ and RabbitMQ. Monitoring integrates with enterprise monitoring platforms including Prometheus, Grafana, New Relic, and Datadog via metrics exporters and JMX bridges. Security management integrates with certificate infrastructures such as Let's Encrypt and enterprise PKI ecosystems operated by organizations like DigiCert and Entrust.

Performance and Scalability

GlassFish supports horizontal scaling through clustered deployments and session replication strategies compatible with caching solutions like Hazelcast and Redis. Performance tuning encompasses JVM configurations for OpenJDK and Oracle JDK, garbage collection choices such as G1 GC and ZGC, thread pool sizing, and resource limits when running under Kubernetes with Horizontal Pod Autoscaler. Benchmarks and capacity planning often reference tools such as Apache JMeter, Gatling, and wrk2 and are compared against other servers and application runtimes from vendors including Red Hat JBoss EAP, WildFly, Payara Server, and WebLogic Server.

Community and Development

Development is coordinated through the Eclipse Foundation governance model and collaborative contributions from companies like Oracle Corporation, Red Hat, EclipseSource, and community-driven organizations such as Payara Services Limited. The project interacts with standards efforts from the Jakarta EE Working Group, participates in events like EclipseCon and JakartaOne, and integrates with ecosystem projects including Eclipse MicroProfile, EclipseLink, and NetBeans. Contributions are managed via issue trackers, pull requests, and mailing lists hosted by the Eclipse project infrastructure and mirrored on collaborative platforms such as GitHub and GitLab.

Category:Java platform Category:Application servers