The GlassFish web services stack is now called Metro

Giving names to software is always a difficult task. For example, we refer to our implementation of advanced features such as atomic transactions, reliable messaging and security (based on various WS-* specifications that interoperate with MS Windows Communiations Foundation, but also work Java to Java) as Project Tango. But some people think that Tango is a different stack than our JAX-WS RI stack. But that is not the case. Tango is implemented on top of the JAX-WS RI. So, sometimes, to make this point in email messages, we've been saying "JAX-WS RI + Tango".

There is also the problem that the term "RI" (i.e., Reference Implementation) implies "not production quality" to some people. The JAX-WS RI functions as an RI since Sun is the specification lead on the JAX-WS specification. But our implementation is much more than an RI. The JAX-WS RI is a full feature, high quality, high performance web services stack in production use at many sites.

To emphasize that we have a single, high quality, high performance, producation ready web services stack we have created Project Metro. Metro primarily consists of the JAX-WS RI as the base stack and Tango as the implementation of WS-* based features (that interoperate with WCF).

It takes time to make shifts such as this. The existing JAX-WS and Tango sites will continue to exist, the Tango documentation will continue to refer mostly to itself, etc. But over time we will align the various pieces such that everything refers to Metro. The Metro binary is essentially identical to the Tango binary (which includes the JAX-WS RI), so following the Tango install instructions and tutorial will work fine.

The immediate change you will notice is that we will now be refering to our web services stack by the name Project Metro.

Metro is built into GlassFish V2. It can also be downloaded and installed into other web containers. We test it on Tomcat and we provide a Tomcat installer.

Welcome to Project Metro.