Stax - a Platform for Java Applications in the Cloud

Stax Networks recently launched their Stax product into a private beta.

Stax is a platform for developing, deploying, and managing Java applications built around Amazon EC2 and S3 services.

The approach used by the platform seems fairly intuitive and straightforward:

1. Generate an application using one of a number of templates.
2. Download the generated application source code to a local machine for development.
3. Update the app as needed.
4. Upload the local copy to the server - that will get the application deployed to "production".

A few highlights:

1. Versioning is supported so that a rollback to a previous version of an application can be executed if a bad version was deployed.
2. MySQL databases can be created and used as needed.
3. Grails is listed as one of the supported technologies - currently with "experimental" tag.

The service seems to be in the same market segment as Google App Engine, which currently doesn't have Java support but does plan to add it.

I would guess the success of the platform will largely depend, execution aside, on the pricing strategy, which I assume is to be defined/refined closer to the final release or public beta phase.

JavaFX 1.0 Released

JavaFX 1.0 is available for download.

First promised during JavaOne 2007 and then re-promised during JavaOne 2008, the RIA framework finally reached its first public release.

Sun's vision of JavaFX project is quite ambitious. It caters to Java developers, web developers, and web/media designers. It is poised to become a "write-once-run-everywhere" solution for "all screens of your life" (reads browser, desktop, mobile, and TV).

It wouldn't be far-fetched to say that the technology (and the company behind it) will compete with everything and everybody on earth. It remains to be seen what comes out of that.

Where I see it fit naturally is Java development on mobile devices. While JavaME has a whooping install base there (ever heard of Blackberries?), from a developer prospective it sucks, to put it bluntly. JavaFX has a very strong opportunity in this market segment.

JavaFX runtime for mobile devices will be release in spring 2009.

SpringSource Announces tc Server

SpringSource's SVP of Engineering Peter Cooper-Ellis has just announced a new server product.

tc Server will be based on and fully interoperable with Tomcat, i.e. a web application deployed to either can be deployed to the other one with no change.

The add-on value of tc Server over "raw" Tomcat is management and diagnostics capabilities.

Developers will be able to use the server free of charge. A production license will run $500/CPU.

The product is expected to be released in January.