With Red Hat JBoss Middleware, Red Hat helps developers quickly build high quality, hybrid cloud-ready, adaptable applications that can be evolved for ever-changing and heterogeneous business environments. The foundation for application development is the application platform, and we’re happy to announce that Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 6.3 beta is now available for download by members of the JBoss.org community.

Receiving feedback from a beta release is an important, final step of Red Hat's open source development approach. Unlike proprietary vendors, where a beta release may be the first (and only) preview into an upcoming release, those in the Red Hat community have the opportunity to contribute and follow development at every step of the way. We believe that community involvement in the development and testing of a technology results in higher quality, more robust products – one of the many advantages that open source offers. This is the heart of what we call community-powered innovation.

We invite JBoss EAP users to join us in polishing this latest beta release. Customers who participate in our Early Access program can jump start their proof-of-concept or prototyping projects, test current workloads on the beta version, and receive non-production support in the Red Hat Customer Portal. Members of the JBoss.org community can also download and use the technology in non-production environments and will be able to follow, share, and participate in forum discussions about the beta, monitored by Red Hat engineers.

Customer and community involvement during product betas are an important part of our formal hardening process. In addition to contributing to the success of the current version, participants are also encouraged to voice feedback on the features and direction of future versions.

Interested? Here are a few of the updates and additions you will discover in the JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 6.3 beta:

  • New console homepage that provides easier access to common tasks and actions within the platform, useful support information within the Red Hat Customer Portal, and developer links to tutorials and forums on JBoss.org.

  • Domain recoverability enhancements that enable the configuration of a backup domain controller to ensure continued availability of the management infrastructure in the event of a primary domain controller failure.

  • Support for WebSockets, a protocol for full-duplex bi-directional, real-time communication between client and server.

  • Security vault enhancements, including the ability to provide custom vault implementations via JBoss Modules, and the ability to store system properties and CLI SSL passwords. In addition, management subsystems for PicketLink Identity Management and Federation allow application security configurations to be created and applied from within the container.

This is only a sample of some of the things we’ve added and updated in JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 6.3 beta. Our focus continues to be on making the development process easier, faster, and more valuable by helping to accelerate application development and deployment, delivering improved management capabilities, and supporting the growing business through easier deployments across hybrid clouds.

Join us today to build the community-powered innovation you've come to expect from JBoss Middleware. Visit http://www.jboss.org/products/eap to download JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 6.3 beta and try out the new features!