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Is it worth upgrading to JBoss 7.1 from JBoss 5.1

Currently our production environment runs JBoss 5.1 and we have been debating whether or not its worth migrating to JBoss 7.1. If it was a simple server upgrade, then it wouldn't be a problem. But, unfortunately, we would have to change configurations and that would take some effort. Also, our server runs in a cluster and I read that JBoss 7.1 has more cluster support.
So is it worth it or not?
Thanks

We're currently in the same situation.
There seem to a a lot of things on the positive side:
We'll have to migrate off 5.1 at one point. We need full profile and there are not that many OSS alternatives (GlassFish and maybe Geronimo). That point alone will probably sell the migration since PCI-DSS forbids us to use EoL'd software.
The configuration is so much better and simpler. It's no longer spread over 20 XML files in which you configure aspects in XML files but one central place. All ports are configured in one central place, there is no longer an XSL file that transforms server.xml. You can make sense of the configuration file without knowing the implementation details of classes. It's hard appreciate this if you've never configured a JBoss.
The EJB remoting no longer uses a thread per socket.
Removing a subsystem you don't need is so much easier.
The class loding model looks sane and you get a lot of control through jboss-deployment-structure.xml
The EJB client library looks much more cleaned up. It's down to 10 JARs from 20, half of them are even OSGi bundles (our client is an Eclipse RCP application).
While we're not too excited about Java EE 6 replacing some of our SLSBs with #Singleton beans and some of our SARs with timer EJBs certainly looks interesting.
Faster start up and less memory usage (at least for an empty server or small deployments). We haven't yet tested a large deployment.
The deployments folder is empty by default
Things that we still need to look into:
We're a bit worried about Infinispan performance. We currently use the TreeCache API of JBoss Cache. While there is an adapter for Infinispan that provides the same API some theoretical tests show worse write performance. This only applies to the tree API of Infinispan.
ExternalContext is no longer supported, we currently use it to populate a JNDI tree from a .bindings file
JMX console is gone, if you have anything that builds on this it needs to be adapted, Edit there is actually a port of JMX-Console available AS7-2227
We don't run in a cluster so I can't comment on that.
What will probably be the biggest effort for us is migrating all the shell scripts (installation, integration tests, …) that interact in one way or another with JBoss.
Update
We have migrated and it was definitely worth it. Some updates to the points above:
Even large deployments are fast with minimal amounts of tuning.
The centralized logging (Slf4j, JUL, JCL, Log4j, …) is really nice.
7.1 has so many bugs it was unusable for us, so we are on 7.2 / EAP 6.1 and plan to go to 7.3 / EAP 6.2. Still has its fair share of bugs but we can work around them. We're especially looking forward to role-based access control for the management interface which will allows us to run our scripts with minimal privileges.
There will not be a supported version of GlassFish 4 which puts a big question mark on it for production use.
EJB remoting security is a lot less flexible. We had to put in some workarounds since previously we were mixing authenticated and unauthenticated EJB calls — this is no longer possible.
The JEE 6 BOM POM from JBoss is a mixed bag. In theory it is nice because it manages the versions of all you JEE dependencies. In practice the coordinates are horrible with the version in the artifactId which is going to be annoying when we migrate to JEE 7. Also it isn't very helpful when you want to include an implementation of a JEE API for tests.
Infinispan tree API performance was not an issue.
We replaced the JMX-Console scripts with DMR scripts.
Update 2
There is a deadlock when using EJB remoting over SSL. This deadlock is present even in EAP 6.2. We're now at the point when we have quite a patch set of features backported from WildFly to AS 7.

Is everything working on JBoss 5.1.0 for you? Is your performance something you can live with?
I'm currently in the middle of upgrading from JBoss 5.1.0GA to JBoss 7.1.1 and it has not been easy at all. You're basically upgrading to a new application server. You will need to budget a lot of dollars for this effort I'm guessing.
Having said that JBoss 7.1.1 is VERY fast compared to 5.1.0 (start up times at least). I think in the next 6 months (or so) most of the "hard" migration and transition issues will be fleshed out in the jboss forums or through bug fixes. At that point you and your team can reevaluate if you want to do the migration.
Good luck!

If you are using SSL, one advantage to upgrading is that JBoss 7.1.1 runs on jdk 1.7, which has support for TLS 1.1 & 1.2, while jdk 1.6 only supports up to TLS 1.0. JBoss 5 will not run on java 1.7 so you are susceptible to a BEAST attack.

Regardless, I'd wait a bit.
AS 5 is a EE5 server, AS 7.1 is a EE6 server (and EE6 spec came out in 2009). So that's alot of work for an excellent new runtime environment, but it won't give you any hot architectural possibilities.
The WildFly 8.0.0.CR1 is already due and that's EE7 server bringing you a bunch of new interesting developing possibilitites, like WebSockets and JAX-RS 2.0 (http://www.slideshare.net/dandreadis/2013-11devoxxwild-flybof). New admin features like Single Instance Patching. And it's not sure that AS7-to-WildFly8 will be a super-easy migration since som major new stuff is introduced, like Undertow instead of JBossWeb/Tomcat.
If you gotta go, you gotta go - and if U wind down the dead 7.x path, don't forget to get your hands on the much improved 7.2.0.Final tag (several hundred issues better that 7.1.1). But if you think you can start developing/migrating now using Beta/CR releases and wait some months for a nice production-stable WildFly 8.x.x release, you might be able to sit tight longer before next major update.
br,
Jens

Java EE Download Link

I know this is a stupid question and I really have been looking around for a few hours... but how can I get Java EE? I would like the Java EE and j2eeadmin tools. What do I download
I have downloaded and installed the jdk-6u16-windows-i586 (Java SE Development Kit 6u16 for Windows)
Can someone point me in the right direction? Thanks.

JavaEE sometimes hard to define
Oh, your question isn't so stupid. It turns out that downloading JavaEE is a slightly tricky thing.
If you go over to Sun, you will find this located at http://java.sun.com/javaee/downloads/. But that's actually a GlassFish d/l. It's fine, but if you go somewhere else you might end up with JBoss which will have its own container implementations and its own package of modules to load. JavaEE is a big umbrella of technologies, many of them quite clunky and obsolete, and in any case you develop and deploy a very specific collection of things, rather than a program which just loads classes from some bigger version of JavaSE.
Or, you might want to start with something even smaller, like Tomcat.
You might want to think more in terms of "how should I set up to develop for the xyz application server".

If you want to just play with JMS on your local computer, you could start with GlassFish from Sun. It will pretty much "just work" out of the box.
Yes, you get the full boat Java EE app server and stack as well, of which JMS is but a component, but at the same time it's trivial to install and get working. Especially if you add in NetBeans as the IDE, since it's well integrated with GlassFish.
That said, you certainly don't need an entire Java EE app server just to use JMS. There are many JMS compatible Messaging servers available. ActiveMQ is a single example.
I only suggest Glassfish because it has a great out of box experience in terms of download, install, start up and it's running.
If you want to work on configuring another option, there are several.
Also, I suggest GlassFish (or any full Java EE server) simply because even if you're just interested in JMS, you'll likely find that the Java EE Message Driven Bean (MDB) model actually works pretty well as a mechanism to leverage JMS. And it, too, is pretty simple to set up for the basic use cases. Once you have an MDB, you might want to talk to a database, and the Java EE server has connection pooling, etc. built in already as well. You also get transaction management with Java EE (which can actually be important with JMS).
Basically, while JMS alone is interesting, the other services are also compelling, even if you "don't need them yet". If you want to dabble with them, they're readily available in a full Java EE server, which promotes experimentation, and perhaps adoption.
So, starting with a GlassFish download can actually be an interesting door for learning and discovery things above and beyond JMS.

http://developers.sun.com/downloads/
Select the Java EE link. Select Java EE 5 (first option). One reason I didn't post the link directly is that you'll be sent to a different link depending on the operating system you are using.

see Java EE at: http://developers.sun.com/downloads/

Real world comparisons of Glassfish and JBoss 5?

Does anyone have experiences with both in the real world? How do they compare in terms of performance (memory usage, speed, etc)? Stability?
Does JBoss Seam work well on Glassfish?

A number of things from my own experience:
GlassFish has much better administration console
(JBoss has three consoles, each of them far from being ideal).
Hot deployment is more reliable on GlassFish
JMS works better on GlassFish - this applies to GF vs. JBoss 4.X.
As far as I see the JMS implementation was drastically modified in
JBoss 5.X, so maybe this claim is no longer true
WebServices are working better on GlassFish,
I had a number of issues with more advanced configuration on JBoss
GlassFish has more super-high-end entrprise add-ons, like HA-Database, that stores
user session on a cluster in Database, not in memory, so the full failover is
possible, whatever disaster would happen
JBoss is more much popular, there are a lot of administrators, developers, who know it,
so it is easier to find someone, who can develop on JBoss, there are also more
resources in the net. Sometimes this is more important, then technical superiority of
one solution over another.
GlassFish is friendlier for developers. Redeployment of the web application on GF 3
lasts more or less one second - in oreder to achieve this kind of speed
of redeployment for JBoss I need JRebel. In addition, if someone is using NetBeans,
there is a number of smart wizards, that are very helpful.
The future of GlassFish is not certain because of the acquisition of SUN by Oracle.
Right now Oracle claims it will support it, but who knows how this support will
look like and how long will it last. Even though GlassFish is open source, hardly
anyone is ready to develop application server for his/her own needs...
From my point of view GF is easier to administer, is a better solution from purely technological point of view, but it is far less popular and has uncertain future.
I am not connected in any way with RedHat/JBoss or SUN/GlassFish, my company (erudis.pl) is supporting and developing for both servers.

(disclaimer: I work at Sun and I am in the GF team)
I agree that Seam works fine on GlassFish; see https://blogs.oracle.com/theaquarium/tags/seam
GFv3 is quite different than JBoss 5; in particular:
GFv3 is based on OSGi while JBoss 5's kernel is based on JMX.
GFv3 supports JavaEE 6; JBoss 5 supports Java EE 5.
GFv3 is designed to be very modular; services start on demand, there is an update center repository, etc. GFv3 is significantly smaller than JBoss 5 and will start much faster. JBoss 5.1 GA is listed as 130MB; GFv3Preview is 50MB. GFv3 starts in a couple of seconds; JBoss in tens (you should try the startup for your own platform).
There are other differences, some inherited from GlassFish v2 like the graphical admin console, or the admin CLI.
A more direct comparison for JBoss 5 would be the GlassFish v2 releases, which are based on Java EE 5. The latest release in that family is GFv2.1, with a GFv2.1.1 release scheduled in October (see https://blogs.oracle.com/theaquarium/entry/schedule_for_glassfish_v2_1).
Sun also provides patch releases of GlassFish (akin to RedHat's support for JBoss); see https://blogs.oracle.com/glassfishforbusiness and sun.com/glassfish.

It's strictly what you're used to. I found configuring and using JBoss to be about as pleasing as trying to shave with a jagged spoon while riding a unicycle with no seat. Glassfish however, just seems to work.

My choice is Glassfish: it is faster to start-up, to deploy web applications.
the Admin console is very accurate, moreover it is both graphical and command-line.
Now it is fully-supported by Oracle, its future is not uncertain any more.
It is based upon OSGi: it is really modular.
You can install Spring-osgi applications easly.
You can freely choice between Eclipse Link , Apache Open JPA and Hibernate without pain.
It is greatly integrated in NetBeans (and, of course, Eclipse).
On the other hand, Jboss is more widespread and thus it is easy to find job on it (IMHO because it is an old App Server; glassfish is relatively new).

I started developing a Seam application on JBoss and after a few months tried to get it working on Glassfish. I found the Glassfish enviroment very counterintuitive. I had to fix some strange errors on GF and I could not find any information on the web so after a few days I gave up and went back to JBoss. So personally I would not recommend Glassfish.

I will have to go with Glassfish on this. Deploying a diverse range of application built on different webservices, we had major compatibility issues, resulting in customizing the class loading & still faced many issues. Glassfish I never faced any such issues.

Is there a want for a Java 7 Cloud Server Framework that is not Spring/Tomcat based?

Is there a demand out there for a small, lightweight, Java 7 based open source project that is geared toward making Cloud services more elegant? I have written several servers in my lifetime, and was curious if there was a need for this.
My thoughts were to keep it simple, lightweight, and use the Java 7 NIO 2 functionality for network communications. I was also thinking of using either a broadcast address for local cloud based communications between servers in a rack solution (MBONE) or a serialization-based communications protocol.
I don't want to use Spring or Tomcat, as they are overweight, and they are written on older Java technology. Furthermore, I don't want to use another Apache project because it's too dependent on Apache technologies. Keywords here are "small", "lightweight", "portable", and "efficient".
Maybe this will even have the potential of being installed and used in mobile devices as background servers, or even mobile cloud networks.

From my own point of view, no.
If I want a lightweight servlet server, I use Jetty.
If I want a more powerful, versatile Web app server, I use Tomcat.
If I want a full J2EE server, I use Glassfish.
All of these are of course highly proven. Memory is cheap enough these days that I'm not very worried about a little bloat. That comes standard with Java apps :)
Also, I'd consider it crazy to deploy server technology on mobile devices. Maybe other people have bright new ideas, I think mobile devices should communicate with central servers.
I would probably not want to use a Java 7 server not based on J2EE, at least the servlet part, unless someone comes up with a really compelling alternative. On the other hand, I wonder how small you could make a compliant server.
Finally, as far as I know, Tomcat already (optionally) supports nio: http://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-6.0-doc/aio.html .
Strictly a personal opinion from an old curmudgeon.

How to take a Java Web-application offline?

We develop Java Web-aps (Websphere, DB2) which display graphical and databased information. We would also like to offer the same application offline (distribution via CD/DVD) with online data-update. We have tried a number of alternatives in the past, but nothing has been really stable. What are the new best practices to take a Web ap plus data (in a small database) offline?

I don't know how well it works with the CD/DVD distribution front, but the first thing that comes to mind is Gears. On the .NET side of the fence there's Silverlight 2. Then there's the Mozilla Prism project, although I don't know how far advanced that is.
These are all designed for not just offline access, but mixed offline/online, talking to a server when it's available and working locally when necessary.

I'd suggest using Apache Derby as the database (also available as Sun's Java DB, and possibly still IBM Cloudscape (does that still have DB2 compatibility in place?)).
I'm sure there's plenty of Web servers/Servlet containers about. Apache Tomcat is the obvious one. An alternative approach would be to use an embedded native browser within a single Java process. That approach should be relatively hassle free for users and tech support, and you can just use WebStart to install and update.
If you're using EJBs and other nonsense, then there are similar freebies about. I understand Sun Glassfish is nice and fast starting.

You could create an image of your server as a VMware instance and distribute it with a copy of VMware player (licensing allowing of course). Personally I'd build it on top of a Linux distribution like CentOS5.

You can bundle a JRE along with JETTY server and use a different database e.g HSQLDB (that you can bundle inside the webapp itself).
If you are using an ORM tool to connect to database, you might not have to make many code changes for this.
A lot of Application server distribute their admin consoles like this.For e.g Weblogic admin console runs offline (it uses internal ldap server for its database)
Also as far as Google gears is concerned, they are also pretty much doing the same thing.
They have a server that is bundled along with SQLDB and they allow to synchronize the data between online offline app.
You can sync the data too (use webservices in the online app) and talk over https from the offline app to sync the data, if you need the sync feature.
Also you can check this link
http://developers.sun.com/learning/javaoneonline/2007/pdf/TS-69700.pdf