EclipseLink 1.0.2 Released

A new EclipseLink release is now available for download. EclipseLink 1.0.2 is a patch release on the 1.0 stream, providing bug and usability fixes.

Please come and try it.

EclipseLink 1.0.1 Released

A new EclipseLink release is now available for download. EclipseLink 1.0.1 is a patch release on the 1.0 stream, providing bug and usability fixes.

Come by and try it out now.

EclipseLink 1.0 Released

The Eclipse Persistence Services project (EclipseLink) has completed its incubation phase and the 1.0 release is available for download. This release completes the transition of the persistence functionality developed in Oracle TopLink to being fully developed and maintained as an open source project at Eclipse. This also signifies the first release of a project under the recently created top-level Runtime (RT) project at Eclipse.

EclipseLink delivers persistence services for efficiently working with Java and relational, XML, and non-relational data sources. The highlights include:

· Compact: Standard Java distribution is composed of a single implementation jar and utility jars that can be used in any Java SE, IDE, or Java EE hosted environment.

· OSGi: EclipseLink is also available as a set of OSGi bundles. This distribution offers out of the box support for compliant OSGi implementations, as well as Equinox-specific extensions.

· JPA: Superior Java Persistence API 1.0 implementation with many advanced features offering greater flexibility and performance for mapping, caching, querying and transaction processing.

· MOXy: Object-XML binding support with JAXB, offering highly flexible mappings as well as a meet in the middle configuration approach.

· SDO: Service Data Objects 2.1 implementation enabling flexible service integration with dynamic and static models.

· Utils: Migration utilities to assist developers currently using Oracle TopLink or TopLink Essentials in their upgrade to EclipseLink as well as the workbench for compatibility with classic object-relational and object-XML mapping.

A complete index of features and the full user documentation for EclipseLink is available on the Eclipse wiki.

Standards Focused

The mandate of the EclipseLink project is to deliver a set of persistence services that leverage the leading Java standards. In addition, advanced features were added based on user requests but implemented in a way that allows developers to leverage them when needed but not be obstructed by them when they are not needed.

This is particularly true in JPA, where many advanced features are available through JPA persistence unit properties and query hints, in addition to custom annotations and XML. With EclipseLink replacing TopLink Essentials as the reference implementation for JPA 2.0, some of these advanced features will evolve into the specification defined metadata and interfaces. This approach of leading through delivery of advanced functionality, and then contributing back to the standards, is an important aspect of the EclipseLink project.

Growing The Community

The EclipseLink committers understand very well that developing in open source is much more than just providing access to the source code. Building a successful open source project is really about building an active community based on open communication and a transparent development process. We encourage the Java community to try out the 1.0 EclipseLink release and provide feedback. Your contributions and suggestions are valuable to us and will help ensure the project meets your current and future needs.

EclipseLink is currently available directly from the EclipseLink project web site and is also included within the GlassFish and Spring Framework distributions. Going forward, the Oracle TopLink product releases within the Oracle WebLogic Server will also include EclipseLink as its strategic persistence provider.

At present the project has committers from Oracle and Sun but we also have a growing community of users and developers contributing back enhancements. We are eager to expand this community on all fronts to establish the EclipseLink project as the leading persistence solution across Java EE, Java SE, and OSGi.

EclipseLink Graduates

Yesterday, the EclipseLink project graduated from its incubation status, and was allowed to remove the egg from it's home page.

EclipseLink is on track for a release on July 9th. Mark your calendars, and come check it out.

Peter Krogh

EclipseLink 1.0M8 is available

Hello,

We are pleased to announce that EclipseLink 1.0M8 is available for download. Please see the roadmap page for functionality that has been added since the M7 build: http://wiki.eclipse.org/EclipseLink/Development/Release/1.0.

Download the milestone and try it out here - http://www.eclipse.org/eclipselink/downloads/index.php

We are currently targeting a 1.0 release in July, and moving to RC Milestones every two weeks in preparation for this release.

Peter Krogh

EclipseLink Webinar: May 1st

The EclipseLink Webinar originally scheduled for April 24th (today) has been rescheduled to May 1st due to some technical issues. Please join us to discuss what EclipseLink is and gain a better understanding of many of the advanced features.

If you have any questions you would like to see addressed please post them in a comment here and I'll either address them in this session or provide the answers here.

Doug

Welcome to our new committer, Mitesh Meswani

I want to welcome Mitesh Meswani of Sun Microsystems who has just joined the EclipseLink project as a committer.

Mitesh has been working with us on the EclispeLink code base since the beginnings of the Java Persistence API. Most recently, he has been helping us get our distribution to a state where it is easier for people using maven to consume. In the past he wrote our Derby/JavaDB support, added code to allow us to automically detect what database is being used, and provided a number of complex bug fixes.

Welcome Mitesh, we are excited to have you on board, and looking forward to more great contributions!

EclipseLink Day at Oracle Frankfurt

If you're going, or thinking of going to Eclipse Forum Europe/JAX in Weisbaden in April or are within commuting distance to Frankfurt (which with German high speed trains means pretty much all of Western Europe), you might also be interested in a free EclipseLink Day event being organized by Oracle Germany. Peter Krogh and I will be speaking about EclipseLink--where it came from, what it can do, how to use it, and where it's going. Basically, everything you wanted to know about EclipseLink but were afraid to ask!

The number of attendees is limited so register asap using the link on the invitation.

See you there!

--Shaun

EclipseLink to provide JPA 2.0 Reference Implementation

We are very happy to announce that the JPA 2.0 (JSR 317) specification will have its reference implementation provided by EclipseLink. This is a natural extension of our work started with TopLink Essentials in GlassFish where we delivered the reference implementation for JPA 1.0.

The feedback received on TopLink Essentials from the community has been enthusiastic. To date it’s been distributed within the GlassFish, SunAS, OracleAS, JEUS (TmaxSoft) application servers as well as being included in the Spring Framework. This has put TopLink Essentials into many developer's hands and has lead to many requests for advanced functionality--functionality that was already provided in Oracle TopLink.

With the contribution of the full functionality of Oracle TopLink into EclipseLink and its selection as the JSR 317 reference implementation included with GlassFish, we can address these feature requests from our broad community.

For more information on this release and related materials:

• Press Release
  
• JSR 317 - JPA 2.0
• GlassFish

As always we appreciate your feedback,

The EclipseLink Team

P.S. We will be at JavaOne where you can learn more about EclipseLink and GlassFish. We have an interesting session discussing how you can use EclipseLink with NetBeans (TS-5400: Developing Java™ Persistence API Applications with the NetBeans™ IDE and EclipseLink)

EclipseLink at EclipseCon 2008

For those of you coming to EclipseCon this week in Santa Clara we are involved in several talks concerning the EclipseLink Project.

• Tutorial: Eclipse Web Tools Platform – Uncovered: Java Persistence Development with Dali and EclipseLink

• Session: Eclipse JPA

• Short Talk: Model Driven Development with EMF and EclipseLink
  
  
• BOF: Eclipse Persistence Services (EclipseLink) BoF
  

For those of you interested in JPA tooling you may want to check out the following Dali talks as well:

• Dali JPA Tools--Everything You Need to Get Started in 10 Minutes or Less
  
  
• Dali JPA Tools (JPT) - Focus on the Adopter

Please drop by and see us at one of the above sessions or at our exhibition hall booth. We are really looking forward to connecting with many of you at our first project BOF!

Doug & Shaun

Spring 2.5.2 Ships EclipseLink 1.0M4

I knew it was coming but I was happy to see the announcement anyway! The Spring 2.5.2 release has shipped with EclipseLink 1.0M4 incubation build and includes specific support for using EclipseLink JPA (EclipseLinkJpaVendorAdapter, EclipseLinkJpaDialect). We'll continue to work with the Spring team to bring full support for EclipseLink in Spring as we work towards our 1.0 Release in June of this year.

More than JPA

Although Spring has specific support for EclipseLink JPA, you can also use EclipseLink MOXy with Spring Web Services and Remoting as a JAXB provider for XML message transformation. It doesn't require any special classes--it's all just configuration in your Spring application context XML. As I type this I find myself thinking "where is the how-to for that?" and I guess I'm on the hook now. Look out for a follow up on using EclipseLink MOXy with Spring!

--Shaun

EclipseLink at Eclipse Forum Europe/JAX Conference

If you're planning on attending Eclipse Forum Europe 2008 held in conjunction with the JAX conference you might want to check out a couple of EclipseLink sessions.

Eclipse Forum Europe April 21-25, Wiesbaden, Germany

Eclipse JPA: EclipseLink and Dali: Shaun Smith, Peter Krogh

Developing with JPA and JAXB: Shaun Smith, Peter Krogh

If you're interested in learning more about EclipseLink and JPA there are a few related sessions and tutorials coming up at EclipseCon 2008.

Eclipse JPA

Doug Clarke, Gordon Yorke Data Tooling · Long Talk Thursday, 10:10, 50 minutes | Room 207

Eclipse Web Tools Platform – Uncovered: Java Persistence Development with Dali and EclipseLink

Neil Hauge, Tom Ware
Web Tools · Tutorial
Monday, 13:30, 2 hours | Room 209

Dali JPA Tools--Everything You Need to Get Started in 10 Minutes or Less

Neil Hauge, Shaun Smith
Web Tools · Short Talk
Tuesday, 13:50, 10 minutes | Room 203/204


Hope to see you there! --Shaun