Glassfish -- Enterprise Version vs Community

[jwmajors81]

I was recently asked to look at WebSphere alternatives for my company and was astounded to see that some of the components that used to be completely free from Glassfish are now for pay.  For example, the clustering tools for Glassfish now only come with the enterprise version which costs $5000 per processor.  What are your thoughts about this?  I do not have a problem buying software, but I do have a problem when components that at one time were free become for pay only. 

It is really interesting to look at the features that were in v2, but now aren't in v3.  You can see the list at:

http://glassfish.java.net/public/comparing_v2_and_v3.html

I've included the feature comparison below as well:

Feature	GlassFish version 2.1.x	GlassFish version 3.0.x
Date Released	version 2.1.1 released in October 2009	version 3.0.1 released in June 2010
Commercial Support Available	X	X
Comprehensive platform support : Solaris, Oracle Enterprise Linux, RHEL, SLES, Windows, Ubuntu [1], MacOS X [1], HP-UX, AIX, JRockit JVM, Oracle VM, Solaris containers, etc...	X See supported platforms	X See supported platforms
SailFin (Telco Application Server)	X
Java Platform, Enterprise Edition
Java Compatible, Enterprise Edition (Java EE) Certified	Java EE 5 certified	Java EE 6 certified [2]
Web Application and Service Technologies
Java Web Technologies	Servlet 2.5 JSP 2.1, JSF 1.2	Servlet 3.0 JSP 2.2, JSF 2.0
Metro Web Services Stack	.NET 3.0 Web Services Interoperability	.NET 3.5 Web Services Interoperability
Next Generation Web
jMaki (Ajax Framework)	X[4]	X[4]
Jersey / JAX-RS (RESTful Web Services)	JAX-RS 1.0	JAX-RS 1.1
Administration
Admin Console and CLI (Centralized Administration)	X	X
JMX	X	X
Node Agent & Cluster Mgmt	X
Upgrade Tool	X	X
RESTful admin API		X
Web Profile install bundle [5]		X [5]
Enhanced monitoring (btrace, dtrace)		X
Client
Application Client Container	X	X
Java WebStart support	X	X
Enterprise Application Technologies
Java DB, JDBC Connection Pooling	Java DB 10.4.2.1	Java DB 10.5.3.0
JTA 1.1/JTS 1.0	X	X
J2EE Connector Architecture	Connectors 1.5	Connectors 1.6
Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB)	EJB 3.0	EJB 3.1
JMS 1.1	X	X
Java Pertistence API (JPA)	JPA 1.0 (TopLink)	JPA 2.0 (EclipseLink)
Scripting
jRuby/Rails Web Archive (.war) deployment	X	X
“Native” jRuby/Rails deployment – without need for Servlet container		X
Dynamic resizing of jRuby Runtime Pool		X
Groovy/Grails		X [4]
Early Jython/Django support		X [4]
Developer Tools
NetBeans IDE	X[6]	X[6]
Eclipse IDE	X	X
Rapid Redeployment - Maintain session state on application redeploy		X
Update Center	X	X
Update Center integration with Administration Console		X
Verification Tools	X
Image Packaging System (IPS) Tools		X
Framework Technologies
Grizzly (Java NIO)	1.0.34	1.9.18
Comet (HTTP Push)	X	X
CORBA	X	X
Modular Architecture Based on OSGi		X
GlassFish Embedded		X
Extend GlassFish Functionality (Extensibility APIs) (Administration Console, asadmin CLI utility, more)		X
System/Performance Technologies
Clustering	X	X[3]
Load Balancer Plugin	X
Centralized Administration of Load Balancer Plugin Configuration	X
High Availability	X
Integration
Integration with Identity Manager, Access Manager (OpenSSO), Registry Server, and Java Business Integration (OpenESB)	X

What are your thoughts? 

Thanks,
Jeremy

[Karsten Silz]

On Jan 12, 9:37 pm, jwmajors81 <jwmajor...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I was recently asked to look at WebSphere alternatives for my company and
> was astounded to see that some of the components that used to be completely
> free from Glassfish are now for pay.  For example, the clustering tools for
> Glassfish now only come with the enterprise version which costs $5000 per
> processor.

The 3.1 open source version is supposed to get some of the features
back that were taken out in 3.0. As you can see, 3.1 did't get
release in 2010 but it's available in early access.
http://glassfish.java.net/roadmap/

[Alexis Moussine-Pouchkine]

GlassFish v3.0 involved implementation the entire Java EE 6 specifications and modularizing the server (using HK2 and OSGi). That was *a lot* and we didn't have the bandwidth to get the clustering features into the mix, hence the comparison between 2.1.1 and 3.0.1.

GlassFish 3.1 is set to release in February (fingers crossed) with full clustering, centralized admin and other features all in the open source edition. That would essentially make the comparison page go away. Nothing is being close sourced here...

For the brave or curious out there we're way past hard code freeze so you might want to try a recent promoted build :
http://download.java.net/glassfish/3.1/promoted/ or check out some of the clustering-related videos on youtube:
http://youtube.com/user/GlassFishVideos

hope this helps,
-Alexis (GlassFish Team)

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[Cédric Beust ♔]

On Wed, Jan 12, 2011 at 12:37 PM, jwmajors81 <jwmaj...@gmail.com> wrote:

I was recently asked to look at WebSphere alternatives for my company and was astounded to see that some of the components that used to be completely free from Glassfish are now for pay.

This is pretty standard business practice coming from Oracle.

--
Cédric

[Alexis Moussine-Pouchkine]

I hope my earlier mail makes it cleat that this is not the case...
-Alexis

>
> --
> Cédric

[ags]

Thanks for the info!

[WENDELL L HATCHER]

I think Apache Geronimo might fit the bill since Glass fish is charging.

---

Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2011 12:37:07 -0800
From: jwmaj...@gmail.com
To: java...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [The Java Posse] Glassfish -- Enterprise Version vs Community

[jwmajors81]

Thank you very much Alexis for clarifying this!  Do you know, will we be able to purchase support for the Community edition?

Jeremy