Today, SpringSource announced its new offering, tc Server, which they describe as an enterprise version of Tomcat. I spoke with Rod Johnson, CEO of SpringSource, and he described tc Server as a hardened version of Tomcat with enterprise features that it's been missing up until now, such as advanced operational, diagnostic, and management functions.

 

The new operational features include remote server start, stop, and configuration with the SpringSource Managament Web Application. They've also added enterprise packaging with full documentation, sample applications, development guides, and other documentation on migrating to tc Server from other application servers.

 

SpringSource has worked hard with customers to add the features that have been considered necessary for critical enterprise production deployments. Their goal has been to meet these needs for deployment, but maintain Tomcat's core strengths as a web application development environment also. According to Rod, SpringSource is mainly targeting two markets with tc Server:

 

1 - Users of Apache and other open-source software who need more operational features for production. 

 

2 - Users of Oracle WebLogic and IBM WebSphere application servers who don't need all of the features (and cost) of a full Java EE application server, but still need an enterprise class server.

 

One customer SpringSource worked with maintains a large eCommerce site with farms of Tomcat servers. This customer has spent large amounts of time and money in the past diagnosing and chasing down production problems. SpringSource worked with them to identify and build a toolset to make the entire process easier, less costly, and far less time consuming. This toolset is integrated with Tomcat as SpringSource tc Server.

 

For more information on tc Server, visit the SpringSource web site at http://www.springsource.com/products/suite/tcserver

 

Happy coding!

EJB