Oracle releases free-of-charge ADF Essentials

Oracle has released a version of its Application Development Framework (ADF) which can be run on the open source GlassFish server. Oracle ADF Essentials is a stripped down version of the Java EE web development framework which Oracle itself uses to build many of its own web applications. It is based on the Model-View-Controller (MVC) architecture and aims to provide reusable application components to reduce development time and duplication of effort.

ADF Essentials includes Oracle ADF Faces which is based on JavaServer Faces and provides developers with more than 150 web user interface components ready to use in applications. The framework also includes a controller layer to bind these UI components to business logic based on an XML metadata abstraction layer. Similarly, the framework comes with a set of common software design patterns which are packaged into reusable components and can be used to simplify the creation of the business logic.

ADF Essentials lacks several components available in the full Oracle ADF product. These include the security framework; developers that use the Essentials edition therefore have to implement security features with standard Java EE security mechanisms or another security framework. Other components not available in ADF Essentials include the main edition's framework for integrating mobile and desktop applications and features to integrate applications with Oracle Fusion Middleware for high availability and clustering support.

The free-of-charge ADF Essentials can be deployed in production environments and does not require users to run Oracle's WebLogic server. It runs on GlassFish as well as IBM WebSphere. The software can be downloaded from Oracle's web site. The company has also provided a blog post explaining how to deploy applications written with ADF Essentials on the GlassFish server.

(fab)