Payara is pleased to announce that we have joined the MicroProfile Working Group. This builds on our commitment to shaping and improving Enterprise Java for both microservices and monolithic architectures. 

The MicroProfile project was born as a community initiative to optimise Enterprise Java with a microservices standard platform. It joined theEclipse Foundation in 2017, an independent open source software association, with the goal of driving innovation with a vendor-neutral "incubation" environment.

The Eclipse Foundation's MicroProfile Working Group encourages collaboration between participants, working in short cycles to propose and gain approval for new common APIs and functionality - and in turn drawing on the knowledge of a wide variety of different vendors. As one of the contributors, Payara engineers will shape and drive the future of the MicroProfile specifications.

We talked to our Founder and CEO Steve Millidge to find out more about what this means. 

Interview with Steve Millidge

Why did Payara decide to join the MicroProfile Working Group? 

Payara has been part of the MicroProfile initiative from the first launch announcement. Payara firmly believe in the strength and benefits of multi-vendor open standards and, now that the Working Group has been created at the Eclipse Foundation, we are joining as Corporate Members to help drive the MicroProfile specifications.

We have been big advocates for MicroProfile from the start. In particular, we are keen to support the experimental and innovative approach to the creation of new open standards for microservice API development.

How has Payara already supported and promoted MicroProfile? 

In addition to the Payara team shaping and supporting MicroProfile from the early launch days, Payara Micro and Payara Server support MicroProfile 3.3 alongside Jakarta EE 8.  We believe that the combination of Jakarta EE and MicroProfile is a compelling offering for building future Java applications.

How will Payara contribute to the Working Group? 

One of the key goals of the Payara team is ensuring that we can ship products for developers that enable them to create applications using both the Jakarta EE and MicroProfile APIs. Therefore, one key aspect of our Working Group involvement is defining the relationship between the two.

We will also contribute to specification development and creating new APIs that keep MicroProfile at the forefront of development.

We have always been heavily involved in promoting MicroProfile usage with conference speaking and developer-focused content to help drive adoption of MicroProfile, and we will build on this in the Working Group.

What is most exciting about the future of MicroProfile? 

The combination of MicroProfile and Jakarta EE as distinct working groups, each with a distinct ethos, is one of the most exciting things in the future of Enterprise Java.

With MicroProfile we can experiment with new innovative APIs for microservices. At the same time we are building on enterprise stability with Jakarta EE. This means we are giving developers a platform that they can rely on to deliver on both stability and future innovation.

How will Payara Server and Payara Micro develop alongside MicroProfile?

The Payara Platform has supported MicroProfile from 1.0. We will be supporting the just-released MicroProfile 4.0 very soon, and tracking MicroProfile releases as we have from the beginning.

What can Payara bring uniquely to the MicroProfile Working Group? 

Building on Our Relationship with the Eclipse Foundation 

Payara is already an overall Contributing Member to the Eclipse Foundation,  meaning we can view the different technologies stewarded by it and determine which ones we want to get involved with.

Previously, this has seen us join the Jakarta EE Working Group as a Strategic Member. This ensures we are on an equal footing with the other companies driving the development of Jakarta EE, and our voice is heard on an equal level. We have a committer on every Jakarta EE specification project. This is vitally important as we deliver products fully compatible with Jakarta EE.

An in-depth case study, published last year, provided more information about how the membership advances our work. 

Driving Innovation And Securing Stability

Fromtalks by our engineers on how best to utilise the technology, to bringing its new specifications to our users as soon as possible (for example withtesting capabilities ahead of full compatability), Payara is an active and engaged supporter of the MicroProfile project.

Joining the MicroProfile Working Group is an exciting next step in driving innovation in the Enterprise Java space, working in harmony with our commitment to securing stability for production environments. 

Find out more about using MicroProfile with Payara. This page collates our resources and learning guides on the subject: