Thomas Kas Thomas

Rest in Peace, Java 1.4

25-Oct-2008

Tags: Document Management (ECM), Web Content and Experience Management, Industry Standards

October 30 marks what could be a bitter-sweet day for Java aficionados -- and administrators tasked with supporting various JRE and JDK deployments throughout an organization. On that day, the Java 1.4 family officially reaches end-of-service-life (EOSL) status. You can read more about it on Sun's Business Support Road Map page.

Java 1.4 (now at level 1.4.2) was released in February 2002 and went on to become the most widely deployed (and arguably most stable) Java releases in the platform's history. It was the first Java version to support 64-bit architectures, and it was the first distribution to have built-in support for DOM, SAX, and XSLT. It brought superior security capabilities, including support for Microsoft's NTLM protocol as well as Transport Layer Security and Kerberos V5. In addition, it featured a new access-control API known as JAAS (Java Authentication and Authorization Service).

There were countless enhancements in 1.4 to make Java enterprise-friendly. A new network I/O package dramatically increased the number of simultaneous connections that a server could handle by removing the need to dedicate one thread to every open connection. File I/O suddenly became up to twice as fast as before, with support for file locking, memory-mapped files, and multiple concurrent read/write operations. Long-overdue feature enhancements related to runtime debugging and troubleshooting appeared, along with many other welcome changes.

But as of October 30, Java 1.4.2 will, as I say, be deprecated. So, review your Portal, Web CMS, ECM, DAM, and other systems across your enterprise. If you have any Java 1.4.2 dependencies, now would be a good time to take note of them and develop a strategy for migrating to Java 5, if you haven't already. Or (failing that), get in touch with vendors to see what their roadmaps are with regard to Java version support. Note that if you need to migrate to Java 5, it too is near end-of-life: it's scheduled to reach EOSL next year at this time.

And you thought planned obsolescence only happened in the auto industry?

 

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