PUTTING OPEN SOURCE TO THE TEST:
THE MAKING OF JBOSS ENTERPRISE MIDDLEWARE
Through a rigorous productization process, JBoss Enterprise Middleware teams continually
harden and transform cutting-edge open source technology into well-tempered enterprise
software products with unsurpassed quality, performance, and stability — then deliver it with
top-notch support and mission-critical SLAs. Here’s how it’s done.
June 2008
www.jboss.com
Putting open source to the test: The making of JBoss Enterprise Middleware
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT Page 3
ENTERPRISE IT MEETS OPEN SOURCE:
BENEFITS AND CHALLENGES Page 4
CREATING JBOSS ENTERPRISE MIDDLEWARE Page 6
Open source for the enterprise Page 6
Hardening open source software
into middleware products Page 7
Dening products and identifying
software sources Page 7
Branching code and assembling components Page 8
Dening product release strategy Page 9
Testing function and quality Page 9
Certifying platform and database compatibility Page 10
Validating stack compatibility Page 11
Meeting requirements for performance,
scalability, and resilience Page 11
Security analysis, testing, and monitoring Page 11
Platform certication: Behind the scenes Page 12
Providing enterprise-quality support and service Page 12
Legal assurance Page 13
Professional documentation and training Page 13
Leveraging a reference implementation Page 13
Software localization Page 14
Previews of coming attractions Page 14
JBoss Enterprise Middleware:
Delivering the best of both worlds Page 14
About JBoss Enterprise Middleware Page 16
About Red Hat Page 16
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ABSTRACT
For enterprise IT organizations and independent software vendors (ISVs), open source software eliminates
high up-front license fees, provides transparent access to code, and delivers high-quality capabilities honed
by many intelligent minds focusing on a problem. But wholehearted adoption of an open source approach
also brings diverse challenges, including highly granular components with disparate versions that must be
integrated and tested, variable component stability, uncertain platform and database compatibility, and unknown performance characteristics. Documentation and support may or may not be available to save time
for busy developers. While IT managers expect to perform some testing and validation of any new software
they adopt, it can be hard to predict the time and effort needed, especially in a complex environment that
incorporates multiple platforms and systems. A multitude of open source components — with a multitude of
usage agreements — also brings management headaches and legal risks.
JBoss Enterprise Middleware helps companies overcome these and many other challenges by providing the
best of both worlds — software developed by a vibrant open source community, with the testing, certication, documentation, training, and support traditionally found only with mature commercial software products. This whitepaper describes how a collection of technology developed by open source projects becomes
a set of JBoss Enterprise Middleware products. This productization process — incorporating careful requirements analysis and selection, a stable code branch, a formidable battery of tests, and full documentation — continually delivers products that are hardened, polished and enterprise-ready — stable, scalable, and
fully supported. As a result, enterprise IT organizations experience lower middleware TCO and risk, while
developers can devote more time to business application challenges.
This paper is intended primarily for senior IT managers responsible for enterprise architecture, application
development, and application operations. Managers evaluating middleware solutions will gain a deeper understanding of how JBoss Enterprise Middleware products are developed and why they offer an ideal platform for the development and deployment of mission critical applications and services.
Note: This paper does not provide an overview of the capabilities of JBoss Enterprise Middleware products.
If you are new to the products, you may wish to begin with the JBoss Enterprise Middleware data sheet or
individual product data sheets available from www.jboss.com.
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ENTERPRISE IT MEETS OPEN SOURCE:
BENEFITS AND CHALLENGES
Open source middleware has been a major boon to IT organizations that want to reduce risk and TCO for
their application infrastructures. Today many open source software components power mission-critical
applications, including the Linux operating system, Apache Web Server, and JBoss Enterprise Middleware.
Open source software offers many advantages, including:
Transparent access to code.• With the ability to see how code works, a company’s IT staff knows ex-
actly how a vendor has implemented features and industry standards, and has the information needed
to address any integration issues quickly and easily. In addition, IT managers can avoid locking their
companies into specic vendors or products over the long term.
Constant innovation fueled by an organic development process.• Each open source project benets
from a large community of users who download the software, try it out, and provide feedback and suggested changes. Rather than depending on a single in-house team, open source software design is the
product of many great minds collaborating across the globe. The pace of innovation is limited only by
the amount of time developers can spend.
More rational vendor relationships.• Providers of open source software typically earn revenue through
support subscriptions renewed on an annual basis, giving them an incentive to provide high-quality
support each year and ensure that customers continue to be successful with their software. Because
access to new versions is included in the subscription fee, costs are predictable and consistent compared with the up-front purchases that characterize the traditional proprietary software model.
Freedom from software license fees.• With free downloads available, open source software eliminates
costly software licenses and the cumbersome processes associated with a software purchase. The result is less shelfware and a higher return on investment in application development.
“We’ve been able to attain world-class levels of availability and
performance too. Red Hat and JBoss have proven themselves
to have enterprise-level tools that, when used well, help us
attain what all companies want — great availability, great scale,
and at a reduced cost when compared to proprietary solutions.”
– Ron Rose, CIO, Priceline
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With such compelling advantages, many organizations of all sizes have adopted open source components.
But along with these advantages, enterprise IT organizations or ISVs who integrate open source software
into their infrastructures also confront some new challenges, including:
The need to manage frequent change.• Open source development teams prioritize delivering new ca-
pabilities to community members. Their development process creates a constant ow of new ideas and
new features, so very active projects may develop and deliver substantial new feature sets in every release — even every minor release. As every software engineer knows, constant change means uncertain
stability. The burden of deciding exactly when and how to adopt and test a new version falls on the IT
staff, whose needs for stability typically outweigh the need for the new features.
Variations in component testing and maturity.• While open source middleware components generally
undergo structured functional testing, even the most diligent open source team seldom has the time or
resources to perform the full battery of tests needed to deliver robust software that meets stringent
enterprise requirements. The open source community’s organic testing and feedback process demonstrably can produce very high quality software over time, especially for widely used components. But
newer components or those not widely used may receive only very limited testing.
Granular software components.• Because most open source software projects are focused to deliver a
single component, IT organizations typically need to assemble a number of these components and test
them as an integrated solution in order to meet their organization’s middleware requirements.
Variable access to documentation, training, support, and expertise.• Documentation completeness
and accuracy, availability of training, and availability of technical support can vary enormously among
open source projects. As a result, IT organizations cannot always be sure of getting the timesaving
information and expert help they need. Of course, each open source project creates an ecosystem of
interested developers and users who can often provide suggestions or solutions, but this volunteer effort may not meet the needs of enterprise IT staffs supporting production systems.
Diverse intellectual property agreements.• Though open source software is delivered without license
fees, many companies nd the variety of terms and requirements in open source license agreements
complex and confusing. The problem is compounded when many open source components are used. To
comply with corporate policies and mitigate legal risk, companies must protect their own and others’
intellectual property, which requires documenting and managing a sometimes complex array of agreements. In this context, the open source licensing paradigm can present a management challenge.
“We have realized the value of open source for the
enterprise, especially in the areas of cost savings,
performance, and security.”
- Barry Strasnick, CIO, CitiStreet
Though each of these challenges can be addressed in a straightforward way, taken together they represent
a signicant integration, testing, and management burden for the IT organization. Too often, the result is
longer implementation cycles, extra risk, and higher than expected cost of ownership. So while open source
software can be truly valuable to the organization, it can also produce headaches for IT managers, especially in larger companies using a wide range of platforms and applications.
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CREATING JBOSS ENTERPRISE MIDDLEWARE
OPEN SOURCE FOR THE ENTERPRISE
As open source components have gradually become ubiquitous in some of the largest IT infrastructures in
the world, companies that deliver open source software have evolved their business models and internal
processes to help both enterprise IT organizations and ISVs take full advantage of the software’s benets
while mitigating or eliminating many of the intrinsic challenges. One very important result of this evolution
is JBoss Enterprise Middleware, a comprehensive portfolio of certied, enterprise-class open source software products. Enterprise architects can use JBoss Enterprise Middleware to create complete middleware
reference architectures that support the entire application lifecycle.
JBoss Enterprise Middleware products, available to customers with support subscriptions, represent the
best of both worlds — the dynamic, community-based innovation of open source software, with the stability and support traditionally associated with commercial software products. JBoss Enterprise Middleware
eliminates many of the challenges associated with typical open source projects by:
Aggregating open source components into well-dened products,• eliminating much of
the integration and testing burden of working with granular components and also simplifying
software management.
Ensuring production-level quality and stability• through a broad and deep testing process,
reducing validation time for IT organizations, and minimizing downtime and troubleshooting.
Testing for performance and scalability• under enterprise workload conditions.
Certifying products on a wide variety of JVM and operating system combinations,• eliminating
confusion and extra work for IT organizations.
Delivering new capabilities on a predictable, structured release schedule,• insulating companies
from the chaos and potential instability associated with constant innovation, while enabling them
to absorb new capabilities in an organized way.
Localizing software and documentation• for major languages.
Guaranteeing support for each new version• (major or minor) for at least ve years from release date.
Indemnifying companies• against potential intellectual property infringement related to product code.
Providing a complete, professional line of documentation and training• for each product to improve
development efciency.
Offering a range of technical support SLAs• to meet enterprise IT requirements, along with expertise
that IT organizations can call upon when needed.
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HARDENING OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE INTO MIDDLEWARE PRODUCTS
“Price was certainly a differentiator, but Red Hat’s reliable
products and support are prerequisites for considering open
source products. As an open source product, the JBoss
Enterprise SOA Platform also provides us with the opportunity
to bring commonly used features back into the product,
reducing in-house development costs.”
- Thorbjørn Blixen-Finecke, Chief Architect, Cybercity
The JBoss Enterprise Middleware productization process is a structured sequence of steps through which
code from diverse open source projects becomes well dened, fully supported middleware products. While
substantial interaction occurs between the teams that manage JBoss.org projects and the teams that deliver JBoss Enterprise Middleware products, these teams have different goals and objectives. The JBoss.org
project team is responsible for advancing the state of the art and managing a broad community of contrib-
utors, while the JBoss Enterprise Middleware team is charged with delivering a nished software product
through a process that typically takes four to ve months. The goals of this process are:
To provide enterprise IT organizations and ISVs with a maximally functional and stable platform •
on which to develop their applications.
To eliminate for IT organizations much of the integration work, testing work, and risk traditionally •
associated with using open source software.
To provide customers with service level agreements appropriate for 7x24x365 production use.•
DEFINING PRODUCTS AND IDENTIFYING SOFTWARE SOURCES
Any product planning process begins with customer and market requirements and a strategy to address
them. While JBoss Enterprise product managers gather input from the open source community, they prioritize requirements from enterprise customers and take enterprise IT environments into account to establish
the direction of each product individually and the JBoss Enterprise Middleware portfolio as a whole.
The product team’s goal is to provide customers with the best possible products based on state of the art
thinking, designs, and code. To analyze the gap between existing capabilities and customer requirements,
product managers examine existing JBoss Enterprise Middleware products, recent JBoss.org project developments, and other compatible community software that may be available from open source projects
around the world. Special attention is given to components that have become recognized leaders in their
categories. For example, application development tools in the JBoss Enterprise Middleware portfolio are all
based on Eclipse (www.eclipse.org) and the JBoss Tools project (www.jboss.org/tools), which also incorporates other open source projects like JBoss RichFaces (www.jboss.org/jbossrichfaces). It also incorporates
the run-times for the JBoss Enterprise Application Platform.
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1 2 3 4 5
Delivery phase
Productization Team
PLATFORM
CANDIDATE
RELEASE
QUALITY
ASSURANCE
jboss.org
projects
jboss.org
engineers +
community
Product
management
JBoss
productization
engineers
JBoss QA
documentation team,
certified partners
JBoss release
engineering
Product
requirements
definition
Platform
component
engineering
+ integration
Platform
testing
certification +
documentation
Platform release
(general availability)
When this analysis is complete, the product team identies the specic components and versions that will
be assembled and tested to become the next release of the product. The team then denes specic objec-
tives for the release, balancing ambitious requirements with time and resource constraints. Requirements
include not only functional capabilities, but also usability requirements, platform certication, performance characteristics, scalability requirements, installation and migration tools, and other requirements
for capabilities that make customers’ lives easier.
CREATING JBOSS ENTERPRISE MIDDLEWARE
To create each JBoss Enterprise Middleware product, JBoss productization and delivery teams proceed
through a well-dened productization process that takes an average of four to ve months to complete.
BRANCHING CODE AND ASSEMBLING COMPONENTS
Once requirements have been agreed upon and code sources identied, the JBoss Enterprise Middleware
productization team creates a code branch that will become the next release of the product. At this point,
ongoing open source community development no longer affects the branched code, so the product team
can stabilize and test the software without having to incorporate new capabilities. Any code changes to the
branch, no matter how minor, are rst submitted to the upstream JBoss.org project for approval, and then,
once approved, incorporated into the associated Enterprise JBoss Middleware product. The productization
ects — and integrates them to form a single enterprise software product.
team combines the code from these various sources — from JBoss.org projects or other open source proj-
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“We’ve found a high-quality, easily scalable server that can
match our business growth, as well as superior professional
service from the expert developers behind the technology.”
– Michael McDonald, Director of Technology, Continental Airlines
In addition to assembling existing components into an integrated whole, the team may also develop new
tools and capabilities where needed to support requirements that are not normally addressed by the open
source community, such as migration or diagnostic tools.
DEFINING PRODUCT RELEASE STRATEGY
The JBoss Enterprise Middleware product release schedule allows features and xes to be delivered to
customers in an orderly way while maximizing the stability of their platform. A hierarchy of major releases,
minor releases, and cumulative patch releases provides IT organizations with a straightforward, manageable process. Because patch releases are made to the Enterprise branch of the code, customers are insulated from ongoing development in the open source community.
While xes and changes are made to the Enterprise branch, they are also given to the open source project
community, enabling the open source project software to benet from innovations and patches made by
the Enterprise productization team.
When the denition process is begun for the next major release of an Enterprise product, the team
begins again by examining the open source community projects, enabling enterprise customers to
benet from the vibrant development process that has been advancing the state of the art. Of course,
this new release then undergoes the same productization process to ensure enterprise-level quality,
stability, and performance.
TESTING FUNCTION AND QUALITY
The JBoss Enterprise Middleware product testing process delivers production-quality software that repre-
sents a safe choice for enterprise IT organizations. While open source projects such as JBoss.org projects
each conduct testing before releasing their components to the community for feedback, these tests may
not be sufcient to provide the level of quality and stability needed for production use. Community testing
may be limited in a variety of ways; depending on developer interest, certain use cases or congurations
may be well tested while others are ignored. The JBoss Enterprise Middleware product testing process
augments these tests with a wide range of additional component functional tests, integration tests, and
compatibility tests designed to raise the bar for quality and stability and allow enterprise IT organizations
to use the products with condence. Wherever possible, real customer cases — test cases provided by customers or discovered during the customer support process — are used in the testing process to ensure that
products meet customer expectations.
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But product testing does not stop with functional testing. Each JBoss Enterprise Middleware product has a
dened set of test criteria that must be passed before a release (major, minor, or patch) is delivered to customers. This process requires testing on a wide range of platforms, congurations, and load conditions as
described in the following sections. It also includes installation and management testing.
“The JBoss Enterprise Application Platform was able to deliver
the performance that was required and had the professional
support necessary to enable us to condently deploy the
software in a production environment.”
- Per-Ola Sjöswärd, Executive IT Strategist, Swedish National Police Board
CERTIFYING PLATFORM AND DATABASE COMPATIBILITY
For open source projects, the nature and extent of platform testing depends heavily on the platforms available to developers and the time they want to devote to platform testing vs. development of new features.
As a result, most open source software is tested only on a single common platform. But developers have
long known that differences in operating systems and other platform components can lead to compatibility
problems and that software must be tested on the platform or platforms on which it will run in production.
JBoss Enterprise Middleware products are tested with a wide range of Java Virtual Machine (JVM)
software and operating system software to ensure that they meet enterprise requirements (see sidebar).
In addition, key middleware integration points such as database connectivity are tested with leading
relational database platforms including:
Microsoft SQL Server•
MySQL•
PostgreSQL•
Oracle•
IBM DB2•
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VALIDATING STACK COMPATIBILITY
JBoss Enterprise Middleware products typically undergo diverse types of integration testing in addition
to platform and database compatibility testing. First, software components from a number of open
source projects are combined to create a single product, and these must be integrated and tested together. Second, the various JBoss Enterprise Middleware products are tested in combination with one
another to ensure that the product portfolio operates seamlessly for customers. Third, because JBoss
Enterprise Middleware can form the foundation for software products delivered by other vendors
(ISVs) — in separate or fully-embedded congurations — these leading vendors also test and validate new
JBoss product releases to ensure software stack compatibility. Finally, because middleware always inter-
acts with other software used for building, deploying, and maintaining applications and services, JBoss
Enterprise Middleware products are also tested with other popular software tools commonly found in
enterprise IT application environments.
MEETING REQUIREMENTS FOR PERFORMANCE, SCALABILITY, AND RESILIENCE
Traditional open source software components may not be tested under realistic production transaction and
data loads. As a result, their performance and scalability characteristics may be unknown. To ensure that
the products meet enterprise IT performance and scalability requirements, JBoss Enterprise Middleware
products undergo rigorous performance testing including:
Testing of specic components to identify and eliminate performance bottlenecks and ensure that the •
product meets established performance criteria.
Reliability tests of products under high transaction loads for extended periods of time (24-36 hours).•
In the past, the JBoss Application Server was frequently used by customers in a clustered environment,
but it may not have been tested in that environment before community project release. Today, the JBoss
Enterprise Application Platform is tested in clustered environments, and newer failover capabilities are
tested in realistic failure conditions, ensuring they will meet customer requirements for continuous application availability in the face of unplanned outages or planned system maintenance.
SECURITY ANALYSIS, TESTING, AND MONITORING
As part of the JBoss Enterprise Middleware product release planning process, a manifest of all included
and dependent technology components is developed for security tracking purposes. Throughout the
hardening process and prior to each release (major, minor, or patch), this manifest is reviewed and updated to ensure that any changes with the potential to impact security are evaluated, tested to ensure
the product meets security criteria, and appropriately documented. Throughout the ve year product
support lifecycle, the Red Hat Security Response Team continuously investigates and tracks security
issues, categorizes their severity, and ensures that any critical defects are immediately addressed and
patched. In essence, the stringent security processes developed to support Red Hat Enterprise Linux are
applied to JBoss Enterprise Middleware products in order to deliver middleware that meets and exceeds
enterprise security requirements.
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PLATFORM CERTIFICATION: BEHIND THE SCENES
For an example of the testing difference between
JBoss.org projects and JBoss Enterprise Middleware,
consider the JBoss Application Server. This component was typically released to the JBoss.org community after it passed two suites of tests — one suite of
unit tests and another suite of compatibility matrix
tests. While these test suites were substantial, with
close to 4,000 tests each, they were run on a single
JVM (Sun 1.5 JVM) and on a single platform
(Red Hat Enterprise Linux). In contrast, for the
JBoss Enterprise Application Platform, which in-
cludes JBoss Application Server and over 15 other
integrated JBoss.org projects, the enterprise test
suites are run against more than 16 different JVM/
OS combinations before release, with post-release
testing that continues to expand the number of plat-
form combinations. All of the tested and certied
combinations are published to ensure that customers adopting JBoss Enterprise Application Platform
know exactly which testing has been done and
whether the product has been tested and certied
for their platforms of choice.
SAMPLE LIST OF CERTIFIED
PLATFORM COMBINATIONS
BEA JRockit JVM on Red Hat
Enterprise Linux 4 x86 and x86_64
BEA JRockit JVM on Red Hat
Enterprise Linux 5 x86 and x86_64
BEA JRockit JVM on
Windows 2003 x86 and x86_64
HP JVM on HP-UX 11i IA64 and PA-RISC
Sun JVM on Red Hat
Enterprise Linux 5 x86 and x86_64
Sun JVM on Solaris 9
Sun JVM on Solaris 10
Sun JVM on Windows 2003
x86 and x86_64
Sun JVM on Red Hat
Enterprise Linux 4 x86 and x86-64
PROVIDING ENTERPRISE-QUALITY SUPPORT AND SERVICE
It can be difcult for even the best support staff to provide high-quality service for software downloaded
from open source community projects. With constantly changing code, many different versions in use, and
components that can be combined in a multitude of ways, even highly trained staff may nd it quite challenging to replicate a customer’s problem or propose a solution.
JBoss Enterprise Middleware products, in contrast, represent stable releases well known to the technical
staff who are trained to support those products and versions and can provide both IT organizations and
ISVs with the expert help they need. Of course, the best technical support is the one you don’t have to
use — but even with the high levels of quality provided in JBoss Enterprise Middleware products, software
will always require some level of support. To ensure that your middleware support relationship delivers
value over the long term, you should select a support organization with proven technical expertise and
high levels of customer satisfaction.
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LEGAL ASSURANCE
As IT organizations and ISVs adopt open source technology, they accumulate many different components,
each with its own license agreement. To ensure full legal compliance, companies must read and understand
their obligations under each agreement, and many do not. In addition, because open source software is
created by a broad community of developers, there is increased risk of introducing code that is not standards-compliant or raises intellectual property concerns. At the same time, it is virtually impossible for a
large IT organization to scrutinize every piece of code for potential problems. JBoss Enterprise Middleware
products eliminate these risks through Red Hat’s Open Source Assurance program, which indemnies and
protects customers against any issues arising from product code contents. As a result, organizations know
what is in their software and can manage their legal obligations at a higher level.
PROFESSIONAL DOCUMENTATION AND TRAINING
The quality of documentation and training accompanying a software product can make the difference
between a very straightforward project and one with many headaches and wasted hours and days.
Documentation for open source project software can vary in quality, accuracy, and completeness — ranging
from a few blog entries and forum posts to professional documentation sets. But even the best documentation is seldom provided in localized versions.
The JBoss Enterprise Middleware structured productization process supports the creation of professional
documentation sets and training modules that represent valuable, time-saving resources for customers.
For each JBoss Enterprise Middleware product, a team of professional technical writers ensures that de-
tailed installation guides, conguration guides, and product release notes are delivered with each product
release. To enable products to meet the requirements of a global customer base, these materials are localized for each product release.
LEVERAGING A REFERENCE IMPLEMENTATION
One important benet of the JBoss Enterprise Middleware productization approach is that each
product becomes a reference standard — identifying which versions of various JBoss.org project
components are recommended to interact with each other.
In the case of the JBoss Enterprise Application Platform, more than 15 individual open source proj-
ect components are evaluated to determine which specic versions should be selected for inclusion
in the productization process. Factors such as product maturity, feature exposure, open source
project community uptake, and potential for long-term viability are considered. Because selected
component versions will undergo the full battery of tests and be fully supported for ve years after
initial product release, product managers carefully ensure that the selected versions will be able to
meet enterprise software requirements.
While component selection and comprehensive product testing are important, added benet
comes from the economies of use that occur when all JBoss Enterprise Middleware users are exercising the same supported reference implementation. Expanded use of a common set of software
products results in expansion of customer-driven test cases and usage scenarios, and fosters cre-
ation of an enterprise community that can recommend and prioritize features, xes, and test congurations. The result is products of even higher quality over time.
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SOFTWARE LOCALIZATION
Localization of open source software depends on the specic interests of the community, and quality of
translations may vary depending on the resources available. JBoss Enterprise Middleware, in contrast, is
professionally localized for major languages.
PREVIEWS OF COMING ATTRACTIONS
With software from open source projects, mature capabilities are found alongside new, experimental features. For the new user, it can be hard to know which is which. While JBoss Enterprise Middleware products
can include newer, experimental features that represent previews of new capabilities, these are clearly
identied as Technology Previews that are dened and described in release notes and support policies
to ensure that it is always clear to the user which capabilities are backed up by SLAs and which are not.
Technology Previews represent features that are likely to be fully supported in a future release but are not
yet complete. Customers are encouraged to provide feedback and suggestions. This process enables the
JBoss Enterprise Middleware team to engage in a dialog with customers about specic long-term feature
requirements and features that are currently under development, while not compromising the stability of
more mature capabilities in production use.
JBOSS ENTERPRISE MIDDLEWARE: DELIVERING THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS
“Our adoption of the JBoss Enterprise SOA Platform, together
with Red Hat support, has been extremely successful because
it has enabled us to take advantage of the best of both worlds
by increasing the reliability of performance levels and by
optimizing our IT systems.”
- Maurizio Quattrociocchi, IT & Telecoms Director,
National Institute of Design and Mint in Italy
Both IT organizations and ISVs can benet from adopting JBoss Enterprise Middleware, a suite of robust
software products that offer enterprise IT managers substantial value over components from the open
source community. These products deliver a robust enterprise application development and deployment
platform that eliminates many of the challenges associated with open source middleware while retaining
all of its benets. Products are accompanied by top-notch documentation, training, support, and stringent
service level agreements that make the software a safe choice for every organization.
When you choose JBoss Enterprise Middleware, you gain an application architecture that can support
your changing requirements over time while insulating you from the disadvantages of rapid innovation.
By leaving testing and validation to Red Hat and effectively outsourcing the rationalization and management of your software stack, you substantially lower your cost of ownership, gain higher quality software,
and can more quickly deliver applications that support your business strategy and scale to meet future
requirements.
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For more information about JBoss Enterprise Middleware, visit www.jboss.com or talk with your
Red Hat representative.
SOFTWARE FROM JBOSS.ORG OR
OTHER OPEN SOURCE PROJECTS
JBOSS ENTERPRISE
MIDDLEWARE PRODUCTS
Software license fee No No
Access to source code Full access Full access
Availability Anyone JBoss Enterprise Middleware
subscribers
Development Open source project community Open source project community
plus JBoss Enterprise Middleware
productization team
Enhancements Ad hoc or experimental software
changes depending on the needs of
the community
Structured release process includes
major and minor releases, patches,
and migration tools
Documentation Varies by project component Full, professional, localized software
documentation
Overall quality Functional testing and some
compatibility testing
Long-term stability Varies by project component due to
constant innovation
Excellent, incorporating a broad
array of tests and much more
More stable due to the nature of the
productization process. Cumulative
patch releases address defects
without introducing instability.
Load testing Limited Fully load tested
Localization Depends on community interest and
efforts
Platform and database
compatibility
Generally tested on one popular
platform
Professionally localized for major
languages
Certied on more than 16 JVM/
operating system combinations and
a range of leading databases
Solution integration Individual open source components
only
Components assembled to create
well-dened product.
Multiple products tested together to
create comprehensive solution
Security coverage Depends on the interests of the
community
Issues identied and addressed by
Red Hat’s Security Response Team
Training Varies by component Full, professional product training
available
SOFTWARE FROM JBOSS.ORG OR
OTHER OPEN SOURCE PROJECTS
JBOSS ENTERPRISE
MIDDLEWARE PRODUCTS
Support Mutual support from the community
only – no support contracts or SLAs
A range of support subscriptions
available depending on your SLA
requirements
Support guarantee None Support will be available for ve
years following release date
Legal assurance None Customer protected against any
intellectual property issues in code.
ABOUT JBOSS ENTERPRISE MIDDLEWARE
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