Macromedia Releases JRun 4

Two weeks after unveiling its MX product suite, Macromedia Monday announced the immediate availability of JRun 4, the latest release of its J2EE application server. Two weeks after unveiling its MX product suite, Monday announced the immediate availability of JRun 4, the latest release of its J2EE application server.

The product is designed to work with the various of components of Macromedia MX, offering built-in Flash Remoting to connect applications running in Macromedia Flash Player to server-side business logic and data. Like the MX product family, JRun 4 is focused on enabling users to create rich Internet applications.

JRun 4 lays claim to being one of the few servers to receive Sun Microsystems' seal of approval for certified J2EE 1.3 compatibility. It also offers the latest Java 2 APIs including: JavaServer Pages specification 1.2, Java Servlet 2.3, Enterprise JavaBeans specification 2.0, Java Message Service 1.0.2, Java Transaction API 1.0, Java Authentication and Authorization Service 1.0, J2EE Connector Architecture 1.0, Java API for XML Parsing 1.1, JavaMail 1.2, and JDBC 2.0.

Other new features in JRun 4.0 include:

• Built-in Web services support
• Hot deployment and hot modification
• JINI-based enterprise-class clustering
• JMX service-based architecture
• An EJB development and deployment tool
• New management console
• XDoclet integration

"Unique among J2EE 1.3-certified application servers, Macromedia JRun 4 combines industry-leading manageability and performance to deliver the ideal e-business platform," said Gordon Benett an analyst for Aberdeen Group.

"The new JMX service-based architecture in JRun enables granular, standards-based management to assure high application availability and extensibility. Macromedia's innovative symmetric clustering technology offers enterprise-class robustness in an approachable, affordable package," Benett added.

JRun 4 is priced at $899 per processor for new users and $499 for upgrades. The product can be downloaded immediately from the Macromedia Online Store. A free developer edition with limited deployment capabilities is also available.

Boxed copies of the product are expected to begin shipping May 17.