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Java EE
The latest stable release of WebSphere Liberty supports Java EE 8 Full Platform in both development and production.
Liberty also continues to support Java EE 6 Web Profile, Java EE 7 Full Profile, and Java EE 7 Web Profile. Any Java EE 7 and Java EE 6 applications you write on Liberty can be deployed in production, without changes, on Liberty or on WAS classic (WebSphere Application Server) which is certified for both Java EE 7 and Java EE 6 Full Platform. Here’s an explanation of which application server to choose.
IDEs and Open Source frameworks
WebSphere Developer Tools makes it easy to write and deploy applications in Eclipse. Just drag and drop your app on to your Liberty server. Prefer IntelliJ IDEA? That’s fine because they support Liberty too. Liberty integrates neatly with Open Source software like Spring, Tapestry, MongoDB, and Cassandra, and with other developer software like JRebel.
Simple configuration
WebSphere Liberty makes it really easy to configure your server in a simple, but flexible, XML file. For example, the server.xml configuration file, by default, looks like this:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<server description="new server">
<!-- Enable features -->
<featureManager>
<feature>jsp-2.3</feature>
</featureManager>
<!-- To access this server from a remote
client add a host attribute to the
following element, e.g. host="*" -->
<httpEndpoint id="defaultHttpEndpoint"
httpPort="9080"
httpsPort="9443" />
</server>
This server.xml enables the JSP 2.3 feature, which depends on the Servlet feature; the Servlet feature is, therefore, automatically enabled as well (without needing to be explicitly listed in the server.xml file).
DevOps
Build, deploy, and run your Java applications with Liberty. Use Liberty with Ant, Maven, Chef, Puppet, Jenkins, Arquillian, UrbanCode Deploy, Docker and other frameworks to automate build, testing, and deployment into your test and production environments. You can manage your application code, server configurations, and infrastructure scripts in version control and deliver changes across them all as a unit.
OSGi applications
Liberty supports OSGi Applications in both development and production, enabling you to write dynamic, flexible, modular Web applications and microservices assembled from collaborating sets of OSGi bundles.
Extending WebSphere Liberty
If you need additional capabilities, you can extend Liberty by writing a user feature. For example, one of our developers wrote a user feature to enable Java apps on Liberty to talk to an Arduino.
Built on Open Source
The core source code of WebSphere Liberty was released into GitHub as the Open Liberty in September 2017 under the EPL v-1.0. WebSphere Liberty is built from the Open Liberty source code. We’d love for you to get involved and contribute to Open Liberty in some way, whether it’s raising GitHub issues, writing code and submitting pull requests, writing documentation, or just discussing Open Liberty and giving feedback, thoughts, and ideas on the Open Liberty mailing list.
Open Liberty includes many other open source projects, including:
- Eclipse Equinox
- ObjectWeb ASM
- Eclipse EclipseLink (RI)
- Apache BVal
- JBoss Weld (RI)
- Oracle/Glassfish JSON Processing (RI)
- Oracle/Glassfish JavaMail (RI)
(RI == Reference Implementation)