Survey Says: Confidence Continues to Grow in the Jakarta EE Ecosystem
The results of the 2022 Jakarta EE Developer Survey are very telling about the current state of the enterprise Java developer community. They point to increased confidence about Jakarta EE and highlight how far Jakarta EE has grown over the past few years.
Strong Turnout Helps Drive Future of Jakarta EE
The fifth annual survey is one of the longest running and best-respected surveys of its kind in the industry. This year’s turnout was fantastic: From March 9 to May 6, a total of 1,439 developers responded.
This is great for two reasons. First, obviously, these results help inform the Java ecosystem stakeholders about the requirements, priorities and perceptions of enterprise developer communities. The more people we hear from, the better picture we get of what the community wants and needs. That makes it much easier for us to make sure the work we’re doing is aligned with what our community is looking for.
The other reason is that it helps us better understand how the cloud native Java world is progressing. By looking at what community members are using and adopting, what their top goals are and what their plans are for adoption, we can better understand not only what we should be working on today, but tomorrow and for the future of Jakarta EE.
Findings Indicate Growing Adoption and Rising Expectations
Some of the survey’s key findings include:
- Jakarta EE is the basis for the top frameworks used for building cloud native applications.
- The top three frameworks for building cloud native applications, respectively, are Spring/Spring Boot, Jakarta EE and MicroProfile, though Spring/Spring Boot lost ground this past year. It’s important to note that Spring/SpringBoot relies on Jakarta EE developments for its operation and is not competitive with Jakarta EE. Both are critical ingredients to the healthy enterprise Java ecosystem.
- Jakarta EE 9/9.1 usage increased year-over-year by 5%.
- Java EE 8, Jakarta EE 8, and Jakarta EE 9/9.1 hit the mainstream with 81% adoption.
- While over a third of respondents planned to adopt, or already had adopted Jakarta EE 9/9.1, nearly a fifth of respondents plan to skip Jakarta EE 9/9.1 altogether and adopt Jakarta EE 10 once it becomes available.
- Most respondents said they have migrated to Jakarta EE already or planned to do so within the next 6-24 months.
- The top three community priorities for Jakarta EE are:
- Native integration with Kubernetes (same as last year)
- Better support for microservices (same as last year)
- Faster support from existing Java EE/Jakarta EE or cloud vendors (new this year)
Two of the results, when combined, highlight something interesting:
- 19% of respondents planned to skip Jakarta EE 9/9.1 and go straight to 10 once it’s available
- The new community priority — faster support from existing Java EE/Jakarta EE or cloud vendors — really shows the growing confidence the community has in the ecosystem
After all, you wouldn’t wait for a later version and skip the one that’s already available, unless you were confident that the newer version was not only going to be coming out on a relatively reliable timeline, but that it was going to be an improvement.
And this growing hunger from the community for faster support really speaks to how far the ecosystem has come. When we release a new version, like when we released Jakarta EE 9, it takes some time for the technology implementers to build the product based on those standards or specifications. The community is becoming more vocal in requesting those implementers to be more agile and quickly pick up the new versions. That’s definitely an indication that developer demand for Jakarta EE products is growing in a healthy way.
Learn More
If you’d like to learn more about the project, there are several Jakarta EE mailing lists to sign up for. You can also join the conversation on Slack. And if you want to get involved, start by choosing a project, sign up for its mailing list and start communicating with the team.
Jakarta EE 10 Brings Java Development Into the Modern Cloud Native Era
Jakarta EE, a Working Group hosted by the Eclipse Foundation, released Jakarta EE 10 today.
This achievement was only possible because of a global community of contributors. Congratulations and thank you to everyone who played a part in this release.
There are many new and innovative features added by the Jakarta EE community.
Jakarta EE 10 Enables Modern, Lightweight Java Applications and Microservices
Let’s start with some of the key updates in Jakarta EE 10 — updates that plant Jakarta EE firmly in the modern era of open source microservices and containers.
Most prominently, Jakarta EE 10 includes a new profile specification: Jakarta EE Core Profile. The Core Profile includes a subset of Jakarta EE specifications that target the smaller, lightweight runtimes needed for microservices development. This is the first new Profile added to the enterprise Java specifications in over a decade.
In addition, new functionality has been added to more than 20 component specifications. For example:
- Jakarta Contexts and Dependency Injection (CDI) 4.0 includes a new CDI-Lite specification allowing a reflection-free programing model that enables compiling to native by providing build compatible extensions.
- Jakarta RESTful Web Services 3.1 standardizes a Java SE Bootstrap API and support for multipart/form-dat
- Jakarta Security 3.0 supports OpenID Connect for authentication to help developers meet modern web-based security requirements
Jakarta EE 10 also broadens support for annotations so it’s easier to build modularized applications and there’s better integration across component APIs.
Finally, I want to point out that Jakarta EE 10 gives enterprises the flexibility to leverage Java in the way that’s best for their organization. They can:
- Develop and deploy Jakarta EE 10 applications on Java SE 11 as well as Java SE 17, the most current long-term support (LTS) release of Java SE
- Take advantage of new features, including the modular system, that were introduced in Java SE 9 and supported in Java SE 11
The Jakarta EE Gamble Is Paying Off
This is all great news for Jakarta EE. But to understand how significant this release is, we need to go back to the Java EE days.
Java EE was the bedrock of application development for the Fortune 1000 for 20 years before it moved to the Eclipse Foundation as Jakarta EE. But the first Jakarta EE releases didn’t add new functionality. Then, Jakarta EE 9 introduced a major breaking change: the move to the jakarta.* namespace.
It’s hard to overstate what a gamble that was. Java EE had been basically backwards-compatible for more than two decades. We asked enterprises to change the fundamentals of applications they’d been relying on for a long time. We asked the enterprise Java ecosystem to re-align their products and opens source projects on a new namespace. Oftentimes, when you try to make such a radical change, your ecosystem says no, it’s too much work. And quite a few people thought the Jakarta EE gamble could fail for exactly that reason.
But it didn’t. IBM, Red Hat, Payara, Spring, the Apache Tomcat and TomEE projects, and Eclipse Jetty, to name a few, all moved to the new namespace with us.
Now, with new support for modern microservices architectures and containers, Jakarta EE 10 paves the way for Jakarta EE to drive the innovative, multi-vendor standards needed for the future of our industry.
Get Involved in the Future of Jakarta EE
The momentum around Jakarta EE 10 is well underway. Eclipse GlassFish has released a compatible implementation, and other enterprises and project teams — including Fujitsu, IBM, Oracle, Payara, Red Hat and Tomitribe — are already working towards certifying Jakarta EE 10 compatible products
Jakarta EE has an exciting future ahead, and we want everyone to participate and contribute. To learn more, connect with the global community. If enterprise Java is important to your business strategy, join the Jakarta EE Working Group. Learn more about the benefits and advantages of membership here.
Eclipse Foundation Celebrates Pride Month
From all of us at the Eclipse Foundation, we’d like to wish the LGBTQ+ community a happy Pride Month.
As June winds down, we’d like to recognize the Eclipse Community’s continuing efforts to foster an open and welcoming environment for everyone.
Our Community Code of Conduct outlines the standards of behavior for everyone in our community. These standards include the usage of inclusive and welcoming language, being respectful of differing viewpoints, and showing empathy towards members of differing communities.
With contributors and committers from all over the world with different life experiences, we understand that it takes all of us to maintain a culture where everyone can feel like they belong. We also understand that our efforts to create safe and accepting spaces for people of all races, faiths, sexual orientations and gender identities do not end at simply upholding our Code of Conduct.
That’s why we’re welcoming feedback on how we can increase our inclusion and diversity efforts. If you have any ideas on how we can work to improve in this area, please contact emo@eclipse.org.
Open Source Security at the Eclipse Foundation
Open source software is the single most important engine for innovation today. The ability to freely combine software components, frameworks, and platforms frees developers from constantly reinventing the wheel and allows them to focus on the new innovations that users want. Free software also enables business models to scale in ways that proprietary software would never allow. Globally and in all sectors of the economy, building on top of open source software is the dominant approach to delivering successful software systems today.
However, with great success comes great responsibility. From Heartbleed to SolarWinds to Log4j, securing open source software and its global supply chain has never been more important. The reasons for this are many, but among them is that for too long open source has been treated by many of its consumers as “free as in free beer” where they should have been treating it as “free as in a free puppy.” Contributing to the sustainability of the projects and communities that deliver open source is really no longer a choice. It is a necessity.
At the Eclipse Foundation, we believe that foundations have a role to play in addressing the challenges of securing open source and its supply chain. Specifically, we want to provide services to our projects that help improve their security posture. But doing so requires additional staff and resources. That’s why we are so grateful for the financial support from the OpenSSF’s Alpha-Omega project, being announced today. This money will allow us to start building a team to roll out many of the ideas in our Open Source Software Supply Chain Best Practices document under the leadership of Mikael Barbero, our Head of Security.
Some of the ways that we are going to put this funding to good use include:
- Automate the generation of static source-based SBOMs for all Eclipse Foundation project repositories.
- Implement a SLSA-based project badging program for Eclipse Foundation projects.
- Initiate a number of security audits for high-profile Eclipse Foundation projects.
We are also going to provide regular and public updates to the community about our progress and initiatives.
Software security is a never-ending process. This funding is the first step in a journey. We appreciate the support of the Alpha-Omega project, and are committed to using it effectively.
AQAvit Brings Quality Assurance to Adoptium Marketplace and Java Ecosystem
The launch of the Adoptium Marketplace on May 26 is exciting news for the millions of developers, researchers, and organizations who rely on TCK-tested compatible Java runtimes. As noted in the announcement, by providing a vendor neutral home for the OpenJDK ecosystem, the marketplace makes it easier than ever to access Java SE-conformant binaries necessary for cloud native and enterprise deployments.
But there’s more to the story. For a long time, compatibility has been the name of the game when it came to Java implementations. The Adoptium Marketplace has been set up to take the Java ecosystem to the next stage of its development.
That’s where Eclipse AQAvit comes in. It brings quality assurance metrics into the marketplace, so that the Java community can begin to select binaries not just based on compatibility but on quality.
Eclipse AQAvit Brings Quality Assurance to Java
Everything in the marketplace will be compatible with the relevant version of the Java SE Technology Compatibility Kit (TCK).
But TCK compatibility doesn’t tell you anything about the quality of the implementation. In recent years, the number of OpenJDK-based runtime distributions has absolutely exploded. And although many vendors maintain their own release quality tests, OpenJDK distros have historically not been built to any consistent quality standard. It has become increasingly clear that the Java ecosystem needs a consistent, multi-vendor definition of quality.
Ensuring high-quality binaries are ready for production deployment is crucial for the Adoptium Marketplace. The AQAvit project team compiled tens of thousands of tests and built a few of their own to produce a comprehensive, systematic way of ensuring the quality of runtimes available. The AQAvit Quality Verification Suite covers a broad set of requirements, ensuring binaries provide superior:
- Performance
- Security
- Resilience
- Endurance
They also ensure that the binaries can pass a wide variety of application test suites and can verify new functionality during runtime development. That’s what’s unique about the Adoptium Marketplace: it provides peace of mind knowing that the binaries are not only compatible but will actually meet the demanding requirements of your enterprise applications.
Contributing Helps Ensure AQAvit Meets Your Needs
And in the spirit of open source, you give a little to get a lot.
Many of the founding members of the Adoptium Working Group are Java developers and vendors, including Alibaba Cloud, Azul, Huawei, IBM, iJUG, Karakun AG, Microsoft, New Relic, and Red Hat. The marketplace enables working group members to promote their Java SE compatible releases verified to Eclipse AQAvit’s quality criteria. Their membership helps support the cloud-based infrastructure that drives Adoptium’s efficiency as a shared community project. In other words, the working group collaborates to create and provide access to high-performance, enterprise-caliber, cross-platform, open source-licensed, and Java-compatible binaries of OpenJDK builds, through the marketplace.
Contributing to the AQAvit project is one of the best ways to ensure access to runtimes that meet specific needs. We encourage Java community members to get involved and contribute additional tests to cover the use cases their applications require. They’ll be incorporated in the AQAvit test suite, so every binary going forward will have to meet that standard. This way enterprises and developers can be confident any AQAvit-verified binaries they use will function as needed.
Security Updates for Java
Quality assurance is a big part of what makes the Adoptium Marketplace unique, but it’s not the whole picture. Security fixes are also an important focus.
Once upon a time, you could count on getting security fixes for old versions of Java for a long time. After all, if you’ve deployed a set of applications on a version, you’re probably going to want to use it for a long time.
That’s no longer the case elsewhere. But all the distributions in the Adoptium Marketplace will be kept up to date with the latest security patches or those patches will be backported to older LTS versions. This way you can be sure that your applications are secure, no matter which version of Java you’re running them on. Of course, this goes for new versions of Java too.
Everything Users Need in One Place
The Adoptium Marketplace brings together all these elements — quality assurance, adaptability to community needs, security updates for every version, sustainability — into a one-stop shop for binaries. Ultimately, this delivers five key assurances to end users:
- The binary has been tested and is compatible with the relevant version of the Java SE TCK
- The binary was built in accordance with open source principles
- The binary has been fully verified using the AQAvit quality verification criteria, having passed through multiple tests to ensure it meets industry quality standards
- The binary is as secure as possible, with the latest security updates included
- The binary is brought to you by a vendor committed to supporting and participating in a multi-vendor, vendor-neutral collaboration
If your organization is considering participating in the Adoptium Working Group, have a look at the Charter and Participation Agreement. Or if you have questions, email us at membership@eclipse.org.
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