Payara founder: GlassFish Open Source a great app server

There is a great deal of affection within the enterprise Java community for the open source, Java EE-compliant application server GlassFish, which is why so many were confused when Oracle recently terminated its support for production GlassFish Open Source.

Of course, there are plenty of people who are using, and want to continue to use, the reference implementation of the Java EE runtime, which is where Payara comes in. Payara provides 24/7 support for the GlassFish Open Source edition, and at JavaOne 2015, TheServerSide got a chance to chat with Steve Millidge, founder and technical director at U.K.-based C2B2 Consulting, the firm behind the Payara project.

The interview quickly delved into the Java EE Server wars, posing to Millidge this question: With so many different offerings on the market, why would an organization choose GlassFish over WebLogic, WebSphere or even Tomcat?

"They're all good, but GlassFish is open source. It's licensed under CDDL. It's a pure open source implementation of Java EE 7," said Millidge. Emphasizing the fact that GlassFish is typically the first server to get certified on a new release, with it currently certified for Java EE 7 while others are still a version behind, Millidge simply thinks using GlassFish as a deployment target makes sense. "GlassFish is the reference implementation for Java EE, so why wouldn't you use it?"

To hear more about what Millidge and Payara are doing with GlassFish, especially in terms of microservices support, watch this video.