Chapter 1. Getting Started with WildFly
Java Enterprise Edition provides a standard to develop enterprise software, but allows the developers to choose its specific implementation. For every technology that is included in the Java EE (Enterprise Edition) specification, there is a reference implementation; an open source library or component that fulfills all of the requirements. Companies and organizations can create their own versions of the components, which means that there is no central Java EE platform that everybody uses. In place of that, we get multiple approaches on the implemented specification, with improvements and optimizations for specific cases. At the time of writing this, there are about 20 certified (full) implementations of Java EE 6 and three implementations of Java EE 7.
An application server is a runtime environment that provides applications with all the Java EE components. Glassfish is the reference implementation sponsored by Oracle, but beginning from Version 4 (created for Java EE 7), there is no longer commercial support for it. In this book, you will learn how to develop applications on the WildFly Application Server, previously known as the JBoss Application Server.
JBoss is a division of Red Hat, which seeks to provide a developer-friendly open source ecosystem for enterprise development. Currently, the company supports multiple projects (around 100), and some of them are implementations of Java EE specifications. The enterprise elements are combined in JBoss's own application server, WildFly.
It is worth noting that the name change from JBoss AS to WildFly was made to separate the application server from the company and other subprojects. The name was chosen in a public vote (more information on this is available at http://jbossas.jboss.org/rename/vote).
The new release features a scalable and high performing web server called Undertow, which supports the HTTP upgrade mechanism and WebSocket protocol. What's more, the new version of the container is even faster than JBoss Application Server 7, and offers a unified configuration mechanism. However, the main essence of the latest release is the Java EE 7 compliance, which allows developers to use technologies from the newest version of the Java EE specification.
The focus of this book is on application development; therefore, we will first need to gather all resources required to deliver our applications. In this chapter, we will cover the following topics in detail:
- An overview of Java EE and WildFly
- Preparing your environment for the installation of software
- Downloading and installing WildFly
- Verifying the WildFly installation
- Installing other resources needed for development
