Announcing the release of Java EE SDK and Java Application Platform SDK Update 2

We have refreshed the Java EE SDK and Java Application Platform SDK to take advantage of the newly minted JDK 6. We also threw in a new component, the portlet container for good measure. Past components, such as Access Manager, JBI Runtime with BPEL continue to be available.

The SDK bundles are actually compiled with JDK 5.0 to ensure that they continues to works fine with JDK 5.0 as well. This is a really important thing since not all users want or are able to upgrade to the latest and the greatest, JDK 6.

Besides these changes, the Application Server included in the SDKs contains a fix for a performance-related bug that allows us to brag about our record breaking price/performance on the application tier. Our SPECjAppServer result of 521.42 JOPS@Standard is a 19% improvement from the previous version 8.2. This is the only SPECjAppServer result published so far on an open-source application server. It is also the first and only SPECjAppServer result published on an application server that is certified to the Java EE 5 specification. Check out Scott Oaks' blog on this topic.

The Java EE Tools bundle was also refreshed to take advantage of the updated SDK Update 2 contents. This bundle contains the NetBeans IDE 5.5 with the Enterprise Pack along-with the Java Application Platform SDK contents. The tools support for developing portlets is available through NetBeans plugins which can be downloaded here. See Deepak's blog and Satya' blog on how to develop portlets with these plugins.

All in all, lots of goodies just in time for Christmas, and the shipping is free. So, what are you waiting for? Download it here and experiment during the relaxing break in December. You are welcome to share your thoughts on this release as comments to this blog, or at the SDK forum.