The Eclipse Foundation today announced the general availability of Jakarta Enterprise Edition (EE) 8 Full Platform and Web Profile specifications and associated technology compatibility kits (TCKs).
Announced during the JakartaOne Livestream virtual conference, Jakarta EE 8 is the follow-on open source platform to JavaEE that provides a foundation for building cloud-native applications using a familiar Java construct.
Mike Milinkovich, executive director of the Eclipse Foundation, said the availability of Jakarta EE 8 represents a milestone in that it is the first official release of a full Jakarta platform since Oracle agreed to give up control of Java EE to the Eclipse Foundation.
Its specifications are fully compatible with Java EE 8 specifications and include the same application programming interfaces (APIs) and an instance of Javadoc using the same javax namespace. Its TCKs are based on, and fully compatible with, all Java EE 8 TCKs. Jakarta EE 8 will not require any changes to Java EE 8 applications or their use of javax APIs. The specifications were developed under the Jakarta EE Specification Process, which replaces the Java Community Process (JCP) for Java EE.
The Eclipse Foundation is announcing the certification of Eclipse GlassFish 5.1, an open source compatible implementation of the Jakarta EE 8 Platform. Eclipse GlassFish 5.1 is fully tested under the open source-licensed Jakarta EE 8 TCKs for the Full Platform and Web Profiles.
IBM today also announced that Open Liberty, an open source implementation of the WebSphere Liberty application server, has been fully certified as being compatible with Jakarta EE 8 profiles. All vendors in the Jakarta EE Working Group, including Fujitsu, IBM, Oracle, Payara, Red Hat and Tomitribe, have committed to certifying their Java EE 8-compatible implementations.
Milinkovich said Jakarta EE 8 should drive a wave of innovation as more than 10 million developers who already know Java employ the platform to build cloud-native microservices that can be deployed using containers on Kubernetes platforms. In fact, he said, the number of cloud-native applications based on microservices that will be built and deployed in the enterprise will soon accelerate. As that transition occurs, the number of organizations embracing best DevOps processes to manage those applications also should significantly increase because the rate at which Jakarta applications will be built will be faster than Java applications historically have been built.
Collectively, Milinkovic also noted that despite the rise of rival programming languages, these and other forthcoming efforts will drive a resurgence in interest in Java programming languages that will ensure Java’s continued dominance of enterprise IT environments for many years to come.
Of course, the primary reason IT vendors are excited is they no longer need to pay royalties to Oracle. It’s not clear how much of those savings might be passed on to IT organizations. What is apparent is that organizations that are required to employ open source technologies whenever possible are going to be a lot happier now that Jakarta EE 8 has finally arrived.
— Mike Vizard
