Ask the Experts: JAX-WS 2.1

Posted by Bill Bradford on Feb 25, 2007

JAX-WS 2.0, a follow-on to Java API for XML-based RPC 1.1(JAX-RPC), simplifies the task of developing web services using Java technology. JAX-WS 2.1 is a maintenance release that adds WS-Addressing capabilities to JAX-WS 2.0.

Got a question about JAX-WS 2.1? Submit your questions from February 26 through March 2 on the Ask the Experts page and get answers from three JAX-WS experts at Sun: Vivek Pandey, Jitendra Kotamraju, and Kohsuke Kawaguchi.

Mobile Product Extravaganzas

Posted by Bill Bradford on Feb 22, 2007

The Vibrant.com blog has a great article up comparing Sun’s “Datacenter in a Box” (Project Blackbox) with other “Traveling Product-Mobiles” such as the Oscar Meyer Wienermobile and the Hershey’s Kiss-Mobile among others.

Sun releases 10GbE Network Adapter

Posted by Bill Bradford on Feb 20, 2007

Sun has released its 10GbE Network Card. The card has a PCI Express x8 interface and starts at $498 per GigE port.

“Sun’s 10 Gigabit Ethernet Adapter extends CPU and OS parallelism to networking with its support for hardware-based flow classification and multiple DMAs. Using CPU thread affinity to bind a given flow to a specific CPU thread, it enables a one-to-one correlation of Rx and Tx packets across the same TCP connection. This can help avoid cross-calls and context switching to deliver greater performance while reducing the need for CPU resources to support I/O processing.”

More Niagara2 Details

Posted by Bill Bradford on Feb 13, 2007

ArsTechnical has posted some more details on Sun’s forthcoming Niagara2 processor. Rumors point to a release in the April-June timeframe.

“Niagara2 sports 8 SPARC cores, all of which are connected to 4MB of shared L2 cache by a large crossbar switch. Each core is capable of eight-way simultaneous multithreading, giving each Niagra2 chip a total of 64 simultaneous threads of execution. All of this thread-processing power enables Niagra2 to double its predecessor’s throughput and performance/watt.”

More details are available at the link.

Sun-optimized Apache/MySQL/PHP for Solaris 10

Posted by Bill Bradford on Feb 13, 2007

Sun now offers an optimized AMP (Apache, MySQL, and PHP) “stack” of software for Solaris 10.

Tim Bray offers more details:

“I think the essential thing is that Sun is going to try to be a first-rate supplier of all the important pieces of open-source Web-facing software. The job isn’t finished yet, until all of Apache and MySQL and PostgreSQL and PHP and Python and and Ruby and Rails are in the package, all optimized for Solaris, all stuffed with DTrace probes, and all with developer and production support available. It won’t be long.”

Country of Norway chooses Sun for open-government solutions

Posted by Bill Bradford on Feb 12, 2007

The Norwegian government has chosen a combination of Sun hardware and software products to power its “eNorway 2009” initiative to provide its citizens with Web-based access to all government services.

eHarmony now using Sun x64 Systems

Posted by Bill Bradford on Feb 12, 2007

Sun announced that eHarmony is now using Sun Fire 64-bit x86 servers in its datacenters.

Sun releases ODF Plug-In for Microsoft Office

Posted by Bill Bradford on Feb 12, 2007

Sun has released an early-access version of its plugin for Microsoft Office 2003 that allows seamless conversion of Microsoft Office documents to the OpenDocument Format.

CoolThreads processor roadmap

Posted by Bill Bradford on Feb 5, 2007

This PDF file gives a peek at the upcoming “CoolThreads” processor roadmap.

Page 41 shows details of the upcoming LDom (Logical Domain) feature on Niagara platforms, allowing the machine to be partitioned into a dynamically reconfigurable set of virtual machines, each with its own independent operating system.

Page 42 lists the processor roadmap, with today’s UltraSPARC T1, and the upcoming Niagara 2, “Victoria Falls”, and Niagara 3 CPUs.

Niagara 3 is rumored to support more than 100 simultaneous threads.

Ask The Experts: Java Plug-In Technology

Posted by Bill Bradford on Feb 5, 2007

Java Plug-In technology, included as part of the Java Runtime Environment, Standard Edition (Java SE), establishes a connection between popular browsers and the Java platform. This connection enables applets on Web sites to be run within a browser on the desktop.

Got a question about Java Plug-In technology? Post your questions on the Ask the Experts page from February 12 through February 16 and get answers from key members of the Java SE Deployment Team.