Ever wondered about all the names involved with running Java web applications? Web Server, Application Server, Application Runtime and so on? 

In this guide, we dive a bit deeper in to the terms to help elimate some of the confusion! 

Adam Bien explored the possibilities of Payara Cloud in his recent talk for the 2021 J4K conference! 

He used the Payara Cloud demonstration environment - with the caveat that the user interface is not completed yet - to demonstrate how our next generation application server creates a "serverless" environment; moving the "plumbing behind the scenes" so you only have to worry about selecting your WAR, clicking deploy, and running it on the cloud! 

JDK 17, the next Long-Term Release of Java SE, launched in September. You may have seen many of the great blogs, articles, and videos about what this means for Java developers. For just a few places to start, we like: theJetBrainsteam'sdiscussion on migrating to JDK 17; Todd Ginsberg onhis ten favourite features; andGunter Rotsaert mapping out thedifferences between Java 11 and Java 17. 

But what does the new release mean forJakarta EEdevelopers specifically? If you are using these enterprise-orientated specifications, stewarded by theEclipse Foundation, should you make the switch?

Payara's Rudy De Busscherthinks you should, and explained why in his talk toIstanbul JUG, powered byHazelcast.

In October, ourJavaandJakarta EEcommunity has still been digesting the new long-term support release, JDK 17, out last month. Below, find useful articles such as theJava Champions demystifying the new licensing,Per Liden on the inclusion of Z Garbage Collection, andGunter Rotsaert on differences between Java 11 and Java 17- some of our favourite experts are helping the community get to grips with improvements and changes!  

The innovative Payara team are always looking forward though, and work is in full swing for Jakarta EE 10. Particularly popular this month was a blog by our CEO Steve Millidge, who is project lead for the Jakarta Concurrency project, a specification within theEclipse FoundationJakarta EE that works on transferability between Java SE Concurrency and its enterprise-orientated counterpart. Make sure you check it out if you are interested in honing your open source skillls by contributing to a project (Steve is actively looking for volunteers to test, write documentation and develop) but also if you want to know more about what you can do with Jakarta Concurrency in its current form.

Big news also is the new and improvedPayara Forum. We've moved from Google Groups to a new location that makes it easier to discuss use of Payara Platform with like-minded developers - and our engineers! Make sure you have investigated it. 

In addition to JDK 17 tips and tricks, and Jakarta Concurrency content, please find below our pick of the best blogs, articles, videos and podcasts from the world of Java, Jakarta EE, MicroProfile, open source and DevOps over the last month. We also include industry news and where you can find Payarans across the web!

A realm is the security policy domain within an application server. It defines how the authentication and authorization for your application is performed. Most of the time, your application is used by a person that can provide username and passwords as credentials (directly or indirectly through providers like an OpenId Connect provider) but some use cases exist where another process needs to use your endpoints.

Jakarta EE, previously Java EE, is a set of specifications that enables the world wide community of Java developers to work on cloud native Java enterprise applications. It is an open source project maintained by theEclipse Foundation.

Jakarta Concurrency is a small, but fundamental, specification under the Jakarta EE umbrella. As project lead, I provide more information on what it is, its future and how to be involved.

Data is sent to and received from the endpoints within Payara Platform. When large chunks of data are sent to the client in response to a request, it might be an option to compress the data when the bandwidth is limited.  This speeds up the transfer, but requires more CPU on the server and the client to perform the compression and handle the response.

With the October 2021 release, the Payara Platform allows configuring the compression level and the compression algorithm so you can better tune your environment for your requirements.

The Client Certificates security extensions continue to receive improvements in this release. In previous releases (July and September 2021) we added Client Certificate Authentication improvements, giving the ability to define multiple TrustStores and implement a SPI to allow developers to perform additional checks on the Client Certificate.

Previously, any Client Certificate that is used and matched within the KeyStore was accepted, even when the certificate was expired. Starting in the October 2021 releases (Payara Community 5.2021.8 and Payara Enterprise 5.32.0), using the newly developed SPI, we have implemented an additional check when using the Client Certificate authentication option to ensure the certificate is valid.

The October 2021 Payara Platform release is here!  Payara Platform Enterprise 5.32.0 includes 8 improvements, 9 bug fixes, 1 security fix, and 5 component upgrades. The Payara Platform Community 5.2021.8 release offers 7 improvements, 7 bug fixes, 1 security fix, and 5 component upgrades. 

You can download Payara Platform Community 5.2021.8here and request Payara Platform Enterprise 5.32.0 here. 

And don't forget to join the 'October Release Overview + Client Certificate Authentication and Security Realms in Payara' webinar with Rudy De Busscher on October 26th 2021 3 PM BST.  Find out more & registerhere.

We also invite you to participate in the Payara Platform Survey- for your chance to win one of two $25 Amazon vouchers. The survey is mostly multiple choice and takes about 6 minutes to complete. Thank you!

Read more below to learn more about the highlights of this release.

You may have seen that our Payara Forum has recieved an update. We've moved from Google Groups to a brand new location: https://forum.payara.fish/

Below you will find out more about why we made the new decision, what the Forum is for and how to use it!