Here follows answers to the the majority of the questions we had during the BETA webinars last week. I’ll add the remaining answers in he next few days. There were lots of questions so I’ve grouped them into categories – if you have additional questions or require more clarity, please leave a comment.
Note any mentions of specific features, component versions and dates in these answer are subject to change.
I’ll post the results of the EE 6 Poll in a separate post.
Finally some links referenced in the Webinars for you convenience :
The Webinar replay (will be available in a week or so)
Red Hat’s PaaS – OpenShift
EAP 6 BETA Download
EAP 6 BETA Documentation
The Q&A
Developer Tools
Q: the current JBDS 5 beta does not include EAP 6, when will it include EAP 6?
A: A brief time after EAP6’s GA date – JBDS will GA prior to EAP6 GA – so post EAP6 GA will be the first time for us to get them sync’d up. Between now and then, simply download both, it is easy to add EAP6 to JBDS5.
Q: Will Zip file with Maven artifacts be provided in EAP 6 distribution or it will be a separate deliverable?
A: It’s a separate download on the Support Portal.
Cloud
Q: does the openshift flex support postgresql database?
A: yes it does.
Migration
Q: What about the migration from EAP 5 to EAP 6, is it transparent, or is it different?
A. There are definitely some major differences in configuration and management but applications should be largely portable from EAP 4 / 5 to EAP 6. We have created a migration guide and we also offer migration services.
Q: Would you please spend a few word regarding the migration path for Seam applications that currently target the EAP 5 release?
A: We have documentation for how to make Seam 2.2 applications run on EAP6. Furthermore, we will be delivering Seam 2.3 which will maintain the Seam 2.2 programming model but allow you to take advantage of JSF2.
Q: Being already partners, is there a path or redhat offer to help poc’ing the migration from EAP 5 to EAP 6 ? Thanks
A: Red Hat Consulting have a full set of migration services.
General
Q: will you publish the questions/answers ?
A: Yes.
Q: When EAP 6 GA will be available?
A : Subject to the outcome of the BETA, performance and quality – we plan to release within the next 4 months.
Q: You said you wanted to make sure you don’t do a vendor lock in, but how do you make sure that other vendors won’t lock you in?
A: Avoid proprietary technologies (languages, frameworks, tools) that are only available from a single vendor. Choose open standards and open source. Ask yourself this question about your technology stack – if the (single source) vendor goes out of business or pushes their prices up significantly what is your contingency plan ?
Q: Any idea when the beta’s will become stable?
A: EAP 6 GA is planned within the next 4 months but we may distribute a second BETA release before that.
Q: Will the support Lifecycle of Jboss EAP 4.3 be extended because of the late release of Jboss EAP 6?
A : We have a an extended lifecyle program for EAP – contact your local Red Hat representative for more details.
Q: Pros-Cons Domain Architecture versus standalone Architecture : will you better support the first mode ?
A : They will both be fully supported. Domain mode if you want to run multiple instances for HA or scale-out and don’t have other management tools. Standalone mode if you’re developing or don’t want our management wiring to get in the way of other management tools you use or have developed.
Q: What are technical differences between EAP 6 and AS 7.1 ? ( management tools, fixes, deploy tools, etc ? )
A : At the point of the BETA the difference between AS 7.1.Final and EAP 6 BETA are pretty limited – some branding and some critical bug fixes. As we progress through the BETA and our testing we EAP 6 will start to diverge from the last available AS release and that divergence will continue as we start the maintenance stream for EAP 6. More information on our model here.
Q: when will the Jboss Training courses start covering EAP 6, most spefically, the JBoss Application Administration course (JB336)?
A: JB366 (JBoss EAP 6 Admin.) will be available at GA – in fact you’ll be ale to take the course at Red Hat Summit / JBoss World in June. We’re also developing a new core developer course for EAP 6 that will be available at GA.
Messaging
Q: Have you enable data replication to hornetQ in EAP 6
A: It’s being worked on upstream but not planned for EAP 6.0 GA. It is on the wish-list for EAP 6.1
Q: When will HornetQ implement AMQP?
A : There are no plans for HornetQ to implement AMQP. Red Hat has a separate messaging product (Red Hat Messaging) that does support AMQP – Red Hat Messaging can be used as an alternate JMS provider for EAP.
Core App Server
Q: Will EAP5 bootstrap be updated to be compatible with Java 7? Or do we need to upgrade to EAP6 in order move forward in Java?
A : The plan is to certify EAP 5 with Java SE 7 after the GA release of EAP 6 – so within the next 3-6 months.
Q: Does EAP 6 contain tomcat 7.
A : EAP 6 embeds a modified version of Tomcat 6 with support for many Tomcat 7 features.
Q: When is EWS expected to uptake Tomcat 7 ?
A : JBoss EWS 2.0 will support Tomcat 7 and will be available later this year.
Q: Is there any EJB 2.1 support?
A: Yes but definitely in maintenance mode – you should consider moving to EJB 3.1
Q: Downloaded beta 1, can’t seem to find a way to “install it as a service” for Windows. Is this going to be introduced later?
A : The Windows Service Wrapper didn’t make the BETA – it will be in the GA and in BETA 2 (if we do one).
Clustering / Caching
Q: Why do not integrate The full Infinispan product in EAP 6 (not only for 2nd level cache or session replication)?
A: A number of reasons. The cache instance used for Query caching and session replication is tuned for a specific use-case, enabling it for general purpose use would likely impact both session replication and query caching. We have decided to offer a separate product (JBoss Data Grid) that is specifically for use a a general purpose, in-memory key value store. It can be run in embedded mode and also standalone and satisfies a broader range of deployment topologies and designs.
Q: Is JBoss Data Grid announced for end-March derived from Infinispan project ? Or any other relation between them ?
A : Yes JBoss Data Grid is based on Infinispan.
Modules / Class-loading
Q: Can we replace class on demand on working instance, without redeploying?
A: Possibly. Not out of the box. You’d need something like JRebel or Stuart’s Fakereplace to make it work. And of course there are limits to what kinds of changes can be made with that sort of mechanism.
Q: Will you support to access a Java module inside of an EAR via JNLP?
A: Sounds like a cool idea, though you can probably do this already using simple servlets.
Q: Can we point to application classloader what jar version should it use when we have many version of the same jar?
A: It depends. If you have more than one version deployed as deployments, or your JARs are installed as modules (either with different names, or with the same names but different versions) then yes, you can choose which one to link to simply by using the right Class-Path or Dependency entry, or their jboss-deployment-structure.xml equivalents. We do not support more than one version of a JAR within the same EAR’s lib/ directory or within the same deployment, and each deployment can only refer to one version of a JAR. You can however have an EAR with two subdeployments in it, with each sub-deployment linking against a different version of the same JAR (as long as the conflicting dependencies are never brought into contact with each other).
Security
Q: What is the status of PicketLink in EAP6?
A : PicketLink is included and fully supported.
Q: Is there any internal API to confirm x.509 certificate validity.
We do not provide any internal API to perform the x509 validation. You can use the standard JDK Classes for that. Usage of X509 depends on the subsystem:
If you are using JSSE via the JDK, then you can install your own Trust Manager
For the Web subsystem, you can use CLIENT-CERT and use any of the x509 based login modules.
Management Questions
Q: Can the domain controller be started from the command-line interface (CLI) as well?
A: No – you have to start it manually (or run as a daemon / service)
Q: What kind of scripting tool will be available in EAP6 ? Can all the tasks can be performed via the scripting interface ?
A: JBoss CLI was cover in the BETA Webinar, there are some more details in the docs.
Q: Is JON 3 packaged with EAP6 then? or still separate?
A: All JBoss Enterprise Platforms have a managed option that include entitlement for JBoss ON; though the products have their own distribution / installation.
Q: Will EAP6.0 contain more streamlined patches/fixes and will there be a better way to apply patches instead of copying jar files at different locations ?
A : Local patching is scheduled for EAP 6.1
Q: Does EAP 6 CLI able to deploy a web app on many instances at once ?
A: Yes – the CLI is fully domain aware.
Q: Can we see/configure all application servers under domain controller from the admin console of “domain controller” ?
A : Yes there is a physical view of running instances within the domain.
Q: Where web console keeps our modification? Does it change the XML files or what?
A: Yes. Any config. modification made through the management APIs are persisted in the underlying confg. files.
Q: Would twiddle still be supported?
A: No – we no longer support Twiddle but you can use something like JConsole to get at the underlying JMX MBeans or use jboss-cli.
Q: Does jboss-cli compatible with previous Jboss EAP releases?
A: There was no equivalent to jboss-cli in previous release of JBoss EAP.
Q: Will Domain Controller introduce a single point of failure (either at runtime for applications or for management operations) ?
A: No it isn’t involved in application request flow. In fact it’s quite common to disable the management infrastructure in secure production environments. We chose not to encumber the Domain Controller with an overly complex HA design, when the simple solution is to re-start it if it fails – or run it as a daemon / service so it is auto-started.
Q: is it possible to use JON3 to make automated deployments of jboss applications?
A: Yes., more info. in the JBoss ON 3 Documntation.
Q: If we can change configuration of other instances remotly, can it be done in transactional way – I mean all of the node confirm the change, or none of them in case of some failure
By default, if you make an administrative change that affects multiple servers, the Domain Controller will apply it on all affected servers and will roll it back on all affected servers if it fails on any of them. This constraint can be relaxed when using the CLI by adding an additional header to the operation request that specifies a “rollout-plan”. Among other things, rollout plan can specify that a certain number or percentage of servers in a server group can fail to accept the change without triggering an overall rollback. (See “Operations with a Rollout Plan” on for some conceptual information about rollout plans.
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