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

Question

I have a question. 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.

Answer 1

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.