Sun Microsystems has announced several technology updates to the Sun GlassFish Portfolio, the most complete, open source, high-performance Web application platform. The GlassFish Portfolio is comprised of leading open source technologies, including OpenESB, OpenMQ, Liferay Portal, Sun GlassFish Web Stack and GlassFish(TM) – the industry's most downloaded application server. Additionally, Sun announced early access of GlassFish v3 containing a full preview of the forthcoming Java(TM) Platform Enterprise Edition 6 (Java EE 6) specification. To purchase the Sun GlassFish Portfolio, visit: http://www.sun.com/glassfish.

“Sun offers virtually the most comprehensive software infrastructure solutions for creating and deploying secure and scalable Web and enterprise applications. With GlassFish Portfolio, Sun brings additional simplicity and lower TCO to customers by delivering the highest-scaling and best price-performance application platform. Plus, the early access of GlassFish v3 offers developers a head-start on working with all of the new features of the upcoming Java EE 6 specification, including capabilities for profiles, pruning, extensibility and ease of development,” said Karen Tegan Padir, vice president, MySQL and Software Infrastructure at Sun.

GlassFish Portfolio Updates
Built on leading open source projects, the Sun GlassFish Portfolio speeds time to market and improves productivity by offering a complete, pre-integrated and fully-tested open source Web application platform. New enhancements to the GlassFish Portfolio include:

Sun GlassFish Web Stack – the complete, pre-integrated and pre-tested LAMP stack has been updated with new versions of leading open source projects, such as Apache HTTP, Lighttpd, PHP, Ruby, Python, Squid, Tomcat and MySQL(TM), the world's most popular open source database. In addition, GlassFish Web Stack provides a new, comprehensive user interface (UI)-based management tool to simplify single and multiple instance deployments. These enhancements help to ensure that enterprises implementing dynamic languages with the LAMP stack have access to the latest technology versions in a fully supported, cross platform offering.

Sun GlassFish Web Space Server – Sun's modern portal offering has been enhanced to support the Secure Web Access (SSL-VPN) module and includes integrations with Sun(TM) Identity Manager and Microsoft Sharepoint, as well as Documentum and Alfresco content management systems. With the new Secure Web Access feature, companies can create VPN links to content without any client installation – helping to reduce costs and simplify and secure both portal and other Web application access.

GlassFish Portfolio is available via a flexible subscription-based pricing model starting at $999 per server (USD). Sun also offers a range of support and services options for GlassFish Portfolio customers, from basic patch services to 24x7 mission-critical support.

Java EE 6 Preview
The GlassFish Portfolio now provides a full preview of the Java EE 6 specification (JSR 316) in the early access of GlassFish v3. Using OSGi-based modularity and the new Profile distributions, Java EE can be tailored to meet specific deployment scenarios, including the full comprehensive application server stack with transactions, messaging and other enterprise-grade features, as well as lightweight containers for simpler, more specialized and easier to manage stacks. ISVs building Java EE implementations can specialize development with the lighter profiles and offer new services to customers by using dynamic, Web languages on the same platform used to build enterprise applications.

GlassFish Portfolio Partner Ecosystem
The Sun(SM) Partner Advantage Program GlassFish Portfolio Partner Offering continues to experience rapid growth across Europe, Asia and Latin America, in addition to aggressive adoption in the U.S. With over 120 percent enrollment growth since the program launched last year, partner members now deliver new options for rich internet applications (RIA), Ruby and Web service development, as well as platform performance enhancements to support a wide range of business applications - including analytics, eLearning and industry-focused offerings. Partners also participate in specialized tracks for systems integrators, Sun GlassFish(TM) Communications Server mobile solution providers and GlassFish ESB partners for binding components, service engines and SOA platform extensions.

“We chose to support Sun’s GlassFish Enterprise Server because we recognize it as a solid solution for enterprise Java deployments that fits nicely with our decision to support other Sun technologies, such as JavaFX(TM) software for Rich Internet Application development and deployment. Midnight Coders’ products will actually expand the reach of applications deployed into Sun’s GlassFish Enterprise Server for different client applications, including JavaFX, Flex, Flash, AJAX and Silverlight,” said Mark Piller, founder and CEO, Midnight Coders, Inc.

With support from the GlassFish community of over 18 million users, the GlassFish Portfolio Partner Offering provides ISV, SI and OEM partners a forum for showcasing GlassFish Portfolio-based applications and services. For more information, go to the GlassFish Portfolio Partner Showcase: http://www.sun.com/software/products/appsrvr/gf-partners-thankyou.jsp.

Enroll in the GlassFish Portfolio Partner Offering at: http://partneradvantage.sun.com/partners/technology/glassfish/.