WebSphere Application Server V7.0 New Features

I've noticed that alot of folks are coming to this blog looking for a high level overview of WebSphere Application Server V7.0 (searching for things like websphere 7 features, websphere v7) and finding somewhat related articles, but never a quick overview of the major new functional areas. So, on the first birthday of V7.0, here is a quick overview.

Our themes for the release were Simplification for Developers, Intelligent Management, High Performance Foundation for SOA, and Innovation that Matters.

Simplification for Developers

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V7.0 supports the important new standards for JDK 6.0 including JDBC 4.0, Java EE 5, EJB 3.0 and JPA, Web Services, new SIP RFC's, messaging, and Portlets (JSR 286). While many of these annotation driven ease of use enhancements have been available for some time as V6.1 feature packs, V7.0 ships all of the Java EE 5 standard fully certified. The ease of use comes from two things. First, annotations allow you to easily configure EJB's and web services within the application code. Second, most configuration is defaulted which means you only have to configure exceptional cases. Rational Application Developer (RAD) Assembly and Deploy tooling comes in the box which is a subset of RAD for WebSphere which is first class tooling for all of these new features.

Intelligent Management

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In addition to the existing WAS 6.1 management infrastructure, WAS 7.0 adds two new topology options via Administrative Agent and Flexible Management. An administrative agent allows management of multiple standalone application servers on the same machine reducing runtime footprint and start-up cost of administration. Flexible management supports the Job Manager which can handle asynchronous administration job queuing across multiple WebSphere cells which allows scaling to very large and complex environments especially geographically distributed environments. WAS V7.0 introduces the concept of Business Level Applications (BLA) which defines multi-component applications allowing administration of applications that have a scope larger than a single war or ear. Also included is the Centralized Install Manager (CIM) which allows centralized installation of fix packs, refresh packs, and interim fixes from the deployment manager to all nodes in the cell. Update Installer and Install Factory where also updated.

High Performance Foundation for SOA

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I have blogged about the performance improvements in general, on web services, on EJB 3.0/JPA, and 64-bit. With runtime provisioning based on OSGi, we also now start components selectively helping with start-up time and footprint. Our Dynacache engine has been updated and is explained here. Security is always important in the foundation and with V7.0 -- you'll see more fine grained security domains, security auditing, and a DMZ hardened proxy. We also continue to protect investments in WAS with supporting mixed older versions of the application server across a cell providing support for applications running on version of Java EE as old as 1.2.

Innovation that Matters

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We continue to innovate beyond V7.0 through the use of feature packs. Feature packs allow you to absorb innovative enhancements before the next version of the application server. Web 2.0 (through the Web 2.0 Feature Pack) support includes Web 2.0 to SOA connectivity, Ajax messaging and the Ajax development toolkit. Service Component Architecture - SCA (through the SCA Feature Pack) support includes service composition and service deployment/assembly that allow binding existing web, EJB, and native SCA services into a composite SOA application. Communication Enabled Applications - CEA (through the CEA Feature Pack) allows you to add access communication services without expertise in communication technologies - such as web widgets for Click to Call and Call Notifications. XML applications (through the XML Feature Pack Beta) that use XPath 2.0, XSLT 2.0, and XQuery 1.0 allow you to unleash the power of declarative XML data programming and improve the functionality/ease of use over XPath 1.0 and XSLT 1.0.

Want to try WebSphere Application Server V7.0 as a developer for free? If so, go here and download it today.

It's hard to cover such a large release in a short blog entry. I'm sure I missed some major features. If you spot one, let me know and I'll update this post.