“By tying Jakarta EE to cloud-native and microservices, we have an opportunity to make the technology relevant to today’s cloud-first world”

A lot is going on in the Jakarta EE universe at the moment: there’s a new website, new logo and a new (cloud-native) future. JAXenter editor Dominik Mohilo talked with Mike Milinkovich, the Executive Director of the Eclipse Foundation about Jakarta EE’s goals and roadmap and got a sneak peek into this technology’s new life.
Jakarta EE has a new website, a new logo, and a brand new future.
The vision for the technical future of Jakarta EE includes the following:
- Enhanced support for microservices architecture
- Move to Cloud Native Java, which includes better integrations with technologies like Docker and Kubernetes
- Increase the pace of innovation
- Build a vibrant developer community
- Provide production quality reference implementations
The Eclipse Foundation expects to see the community working towards better integrations with cloud-native technologies such as Kubernetes and Docker — some integrations must happen at JVM level. Furthermore, they expect the community to collaborate with the OpenJDK and Eclipse OpenJ9 team to provide support at the framework level as these JVM enhancements are made available.
Under its new governance model, the Jakarta EE platform should evolve at a rapid pace, incorporating Java innovations from open source communities like Eclipse MicroProfile into new versions of the platform to help developers create portable cloud-native applications.
Last but not least, Jakarta EE promises faster release and innovation cycles.
We caught up with Mike Milinkovich, Executive Director of the Eclipse Foundation at JAX to chat about Jakarta EE’s future and what’s cooking in the Eclipse Foundation kitchen.
Here are some takeaways:
- Running an open-source foundation is not like running a for-profit company. If one project fails, there are 350 other projects. The success or failure of one of the Eclipse Foundation’s projects doesn’t change the mission of being a collaborative place for people and companies to come together and innovate.
- The goal of the Jakarta EE spec process is going to be to enable independent implementations just like the JCP — it’s about creating specifications that are good enough and clear enough that Oracle and IBM and Red Hat and all these companies can independently implement them and certify that their versions are compatible.
- As the enterprise customers are pivoting towards the cloud, the original mission for Java EE of being an on-premise app server is becoming end-of-life. What Oracle is doing with Jakarta EE is a smart move for them from a business perspective but also a great move for Java developers because this allows the Eclipse Foundation to take this technology forward. By tying it to cloud-native and microservices, they have an opportunity to make the technology relevant to today’s cloud-first world.
Read more about Jakarta EE’s cloud-native path and the results of the community survey here.
