GlassFish v3 Prelude is a modular and lightweight Web 2.0 development and deployment platform. It has been brewing for the past few months and is now finally available - download here! Read the official Press Release for more details.

Use it for deploying your enterprise applications today and purchase production support for the GlassFish Enterprise Server v3 prelude.

Simply unzip the bundle and start the Application Server as shown below (including startup log):

~/tools/glassfish/v3/glassfishv3-prelude/glassfish >bin/asadmin start-domain --verbose Nov 4, 2008 2:39:07 PM com.sun.enterprise.admin.launcher.GFLauncherLogger info INFO: JVM invocation command line: /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/1.6/Home/bin/java -cp /Users/arungupta/tools/glassfish/v3/glassfishv3-prelude/glassfish/modules/glassfish.jar . . . Nov 4, 2008 2:39:08 PM com.sun.enterprise.admin.launcher.GFLauncherLogger info INFO: Successfully launched in 12 msec. Cannot run Java in 32 bit mode. Continuing in 64 bit mode. Nov 4, 2008 2:39:08 PM com.sun.enterprise.glassfish.bootstrap.ASMain main INFO: Launching GlassFish on Apache Felix OSGi platform Welcome to Felix. ================= Nov 4, 2008 2:39:11 PM OSGiModuleImpl start INFO: Started bundle org.glassfish.common.glassfish-mbeanserver [9] Nov 4, 2008 2:39:11 PM OSGiModuleImpl start INFO: Started bundle org.glassfish.core.kernel [79] Nov 4, 2008 2:39:11 PM OSGiModuleImpl start INFO: Started bundle org.glassfish.common.common-util [59] Nov 4, 2008 2:39:11 PM OSGiModuleImpl start . . . INFO: Started bundle org.glassfish.flashlight.flashlight-framework [72] Nov 4, 2008 2:39:13 PM com.sun.enterprise.v3.services.impl.GrizzlyProxy start INFO: Listening on port 8080 Nov 4, 2008 2:39:13 PM com.sun.enterprise.v3.services.impl.GrizzlyService postConstruct INFO: Network listener http-listener-2 on port 8181 disabled per domain.xml Nov 4, 2008 2:39:13 PM com.sun.enterprise.v3.services.impl.GrizzlyProxy start INFO: Listening on port 4848 Nov 4, 2008 2:39:13 PM OSGiModuleImpl start INFO: Started bundle org.glassfish.common.container-common [83] Nov 4, 2008 2:39:13 PM com.sun.enterprise.v3.admin.adapter.AdminConsoleAdapter setStateMsg INFO: The Admin Console Web Application has been downloaded. Nov 4, 2008 2:39:13 PM com.sun.enterprise.v3.server.AppServerStartup run INFO: GlassFish v3 Prelude startup time : Felix(2910ms) startup services(1902ms) total(4812ms) Nov 4, 2008 2:39:13 PM com.sun.enterprise.registration.glassfish.PingService$1 run INFO: Total number of available updates : 1 Nov 4, 2008 2:39:13 PM com.sun.enterprise.registration.glassfish.PingService$1 run INFO: Available updates : glassfish-jsf 2.0.0,0-3:20081017T093242Z Fri Oct 17 09:32:42 PDT 2008 Nov 4, 2008 2:39:14 PM OSGiModuleImpl start INFO: Started bundle org.glassfish.common.glassfish-naming [65] Nov 4, 2008 2:39:14 PM OSGiModuleImpl start INFO: Started bundle org.glassfish.common.glassfish-api [84] Nov 4, 2008 2:39:14 PM OSGiModuleImpl start INFO: Started bundle org.glassfish.connectors.connectors-runtime [27] Nov 4, 2008 2:39:14 PM OSGiModuleImpl start INFO: Started bundle org.glassfish.transaction.jta [7] Nov 4, 2008 2:39:14 PM org.glassfish.admin.mbeanserver.ConnectorStartupService$ConnectorsStarterThread startConnector INFO: Started JMXConnector, JMXService URL = service:jmx:rmi:///jndi/rmi://dhcp-usca14-132-225.SFBay.Sun.COM:8686/jmxrmi

The first start takes some time because it creates Felix configuration files but subsequent starts are relatively quicker as shown below:

Nov 4, 2008 2:48:01 PM com.sun.enterprise.v3.server.AppServerStartup run INFO: GlassFish v3 Prelude startup time : Felix(1703ms) startup services(1463ms) total(3166ms)

And another start ...

Nov 4, 2008 2:48:31 PM com.sun.enterprise.v3.server.AppServerStartup run INFO: GlassFish v3 Prelude startup time : Felix(1630ms) startup services(1302ms) total(2932ms)

And another one ...

Nov 4, 2008 2:48:45 PM com.sun.enterprise.v3.server.AppServerStartup run INFO: GlassFish v3 Prelude startup time : Felix(1586ms) startup services(1227ms) total(2813ms)

What excites me about GlassFish v3 ?

• Modularity using OSGi: OSGi provides complete modularity in the kernel of Application Server. It completely shatters the “one size fits all” philosophy. Basically you pay in terms of memory, resource utilization, learning and everything only for the components you care about. And as your need expands, you can download OSGi modules for technologies from the Update Center. TOTD #36 shows how a standard OSGi bundle can be easily deployed on GlassFish.
• Retain session data across HTTP deploys: 1.Imagine debugging a Servlet that manipulates session data. By enabling a property during redeploy any active sessions of the application that is being redeployed will be serialized and saved in memory, and restored once the redeployment has completed. Read more details here.
• Embeddability allows to run the GlassFish inside a VM – no explicit need to download/install/configure an Application Server. Read more details here and enjoy a live sample.
• Dynamic Languages and Frameworks like Ruby-on-Rails and Groovy/Grails are gaining popularity. These dynamic languages and frameworks are first-class citizens in GlassFish. And integrated tooling (develop/deploy/debug) cycle makes it all the more attractive. Read more details here and numerous samples.
• Faster startup time – Application server startup in 2-3 seconds, need we say more. Think about about the productivity boost!
• Integrated Tooling – NetBeans 6.5 & Eclipse 3.4 provides comprehensive tooling options. By using deploy-on-save technology, Servlets and JSPs are automatically compiled and deployed. This functionality shortens a developer's iterative development experience to edit-save-refresh browser. Screencast #24 shows how to get started with NetBeans (an updated one coming soon). Read more details about Eclipse 3.4 here. Detailed screencasts coming for both the IDEs soon.
• First flavor of Java EE 6 – First access to some of the Java EE 6 spec implementations are available through the bundled Update Center. JAX-RS 1.0, JSF 2.0, EJB 3.1 to begin with and more will be pushed as we make progress.

What do you find exciting in GlassFish v3 ?

There are many other cool features which you'll hear/watch in the upcoming days on this blog. Here are some of the screencasts I plan to release (in no particular order) over next few days:

• Getting Started with GlassFish v3 Prelude using NetBeans 6.5 and Eclipse 3.4
• Web Application develop/deploy/debug session using NetBeans 6.5 and Eclipse 3.4
• Create/Run/Debug Rails application on GlassFish v3 using NetBeans 6.5
• Retain Session data across HTTP deploys using NetBeans 6.5 and Eclipse 3.4
• Creating an OSGi bundle and deploying on GlassFish v3 Prelude

Let me know if you have any particular preference.

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