Book Image

Apache Geronimo 2.1: Quick Reference

Book Image

Apache Geronimo 2.1: Quick Reference

Overview of this book

Apache Geronimo is a robust, scalable, secure, and high-performing application server. But like all application servers, this power comes with a steep learning curve. This book can help you save your time and get working with Geronimo in matter of a few hours. This book is a quick-reference guide to Apache Geronimo that mitigates the starting pains that most developers have when they migrate to a new Application Server. It will help you to extend and amplify your existing development skills, empowering you to build new types of applications regardless of the platform or browser. The book will introduce you to the exciting features of Apache Geronimo Application Server. You will see how easily you can develop and deploy Java EE 5 applications on Geronimo. It covers everything from downloading the server to customizing it using custom GBeans. By following the practical examples in this book, you will be able to develop applications quickly using Geronimo Eclipse Plugin. The book covers Geronimo internals in detail, which helps you write custom services on Geronimo. Also, it helps you to gain a deep understanding of Geronimo plugin architecture and teaches you to extend your server functionality via plugins. By the end of the book, you will develop proficiency in Geronimo and Java EE 5 application development.
Table of Contents (21 chapters)
Apache Geronimo 2.1
Credits
About the Authors
About the Reviewer
Preface

Chapter 1. Getting Started with Geronimo

Apache Geronimo is a free, open source Java EE application server from the Apache Software Foundation (ASF). The latest released version, 2.1.4, is Java EE 5 certified. In this chapter, we will quickly take you through:

  • The motivation behind the Geronimo project

  • Geronimo architecture

  • The constituent projects that it integrates

  • Downloading and running Geronimo

  • Building Geronimo from source code

  • Contributing to the Geronimo project

This should get you started with using the Geronimo application server right away, and give you a glimpse of what Geronimo has to offer.

Motivation behind the Geronimo project

Apache Geronimo started as an application server. The first release of Apache Geronimo, that is, version 1.0 was J2EE 1.4 certified. The latest version is backward compatible to the J2EE 1.4, 1.3, and 1.2 specifications. The rationale behind Apache Software Foundation creating this project was:

  • There was no open source J2EE server based on BSD license available in the market at the time Apache Geronimo was proposed. With BSD license, anyone could modify the source code and also include it in their derivative offerings without making the derivative open source.

  • There were many projects in the Apache Software Foundation that implemented parts of the J2EE specification. The rationale was to create a full application server that used these best-of-breed open source components internally and filled in the gaps that were missing.

  • There was still more room for innovation in the J2EE application server space.

Thus Apache Geronimo was born.