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Terracotta Adds Support for WebSphere and Hibernate
Check out new functionality and expanded support in Terracotta 2.4.
by John K. Waters

June 25, 2007

Open source clustering solutions provider Terracotta is set to announce today new support for IBM's WebSphere and WebSphere CE application servers, and for the Hibernate open source object-relational mapper.

Terracotta 2.4 is designed to provide WebSphere and WebSphere CE users with the ability to replicate session state, build distributed caches and coordinate application workflow using Terracotta's high-performance object-sharing technology. The new EHcache configuration module in version 2.4 also offers high-performance clustering for Hibernate second-level cache through the popular open source EHcache product.

Terracotta provides a service for Java that clusters applications at run time. Essentially, it allows an application built to run within a single Java Virtual Machine (JVM) to run in a cluster across many JVMs.

You can use the service by writing configuration files. This approach involves "network-attached memory" (NAM), a term coined by company founder and CTO Ari Zilka to evoke the same abstraction-layer concept as network-attached storage (NAS).

"Terracotta allows users to decide which objects are local only, and which are local and network," Zilka said, "so that local JVMs get a shared view of an object, just like multiple servers get a shared view of a file in NAS. So I think it's a good analogy."

The list of new features in this release also includes:

• An auto-synchronize feature enables new users, or users without access to Java source code, to more quickly and easily deploy and tune Terracotta. The auto-synchronize configuration creates a lock where needed even though the lock is not specified in the source code itself.
• A configuration wizard for accelerated deployments assesses how best to cluster a Java app and generates a Terracotta configuration file for a user's application.
• Re-entrant Read-Write Lock is designed to improve the overall concurrency of any Java program running across multiple JVMs using Terracotta.

The four-year-old San Francisco, Calif.-based infrastructure software company open sourced its namesake product in December 2006 to increase its reach in the market, Zilka said, and to prove his NAM concept. "I like to say that this is open source the way it was meant to be," he said. "You prove that you add the value, and then see if someone wants to pay you for it."

Terracotta already supports the JBoss app server, BEA WebLogic, Glassfish, Jetty and Spring.

The new version of the product is available under the company's version of the Mozilla Public License (the Terracotta Public License). It's available now for download on the Terracotta community Web site. An enterprise subscription that includes professional support is also available, along with training and deployment services, on Terracotta's company site.

About the Author
John K. Waters is a freelance writer based in Palo Alto, Calif. He can be reached at john@watersworks.com.