'Most people come to JBoss because they want a J2EE application server, but JBoss's dynamic architecture allows it to go well beyond J2EE,' note Norman Richards and Sam Griffith, Jr. in a new book, 'JBoss: A Developer's Notebook' just published by O'Reilly.

JBoss isn't an ordinary open source project. It isn't an ordinary J2EE application server, either. As Richards and Griffiths state: there's something special about JBoss.

For example, JBoss is one of few open source, community-driven projectsthat have found commercial success without betraying their roots. Although JBoss is freely available for any purpose, it's backed by a real company, JBoss, Inc., whose hundred-plus full-time employees fuel the continued development of the project. They also provide training and support for those who need the reassurance of having strong vendor backing.  

But more extraordinary, claims the book, is the technology itself.

"Although JBoss provides a fully certified J2EE container, you're free to alter the services provided to make J2EE work the way you want," Richards and Griffith explain. "You can even throw J2EE away completely, working at a lower services level or at a higher level using technologies such as AOP and Hibernate. You can make JBoss as heavy or as light as you need it to be. You can stick to the J2EE specification for maximum portability oryou can rewrite the rules to obtain maximum agility and performance."

The book is built around practical examples that range from installing JBoss to rolling out an actual production system. The book doesn't explain how to write EJBs or JSPs; its focus is on getting all of the components to work together in a realapplication and is weighted towards hands-on lab-style exercises and light on lecture and theory.

Developers working through the exercises will learn how to:

Install, configure, and monitor JBoss

Use Ant to generate and deploy WAR and EAR files

Use Xdoclet to automate the tedious parts of J2EE

Work with real-world databases--commercial and open source

Configure security, including stackable login modules and SSSL

Configure Log4J to log important events from the server and applications

Generate database schema automatically and keep the schema in sync with EJBs

Map preexisting schema into objects

Roll out a full-fledged production application