What is new in this release of Liberty

This release introduces key enhancements to Liberty.

Multimedia Watch: The Liberty single-stream fix pack delivery video shows how Liberty fix packs are continuously delivered into a single service stream that applies to all product versions. [Transcript]

What's new

The Liberty features topic lists the features available in Liberty products and highlights recently introduced features with a fix pack icon. Recent fix packs provide the following key enhancements:

[18.0.0.1 and later]
MicroProfile programming model support 1.3
The 18.0.0.1 release adds support for MicroProfile 1.3, which is described in MicroProfile programming model support. The following new features are included with MicroProfile programming model support 1.3:
Message endpoint
Pause or resume message endpoints for message-driven beans. Use a server pause or resume command or ServerEndpointControlMBean to control the state of message endpoints.
Collective controller
  • In collective commands, optionally use --controller=adminUser:adminPassword@controllerHostname:9443 instead of --user, --password, --host, and --port arguments to provide the controller information.
  • Use the collective testConnection command to validate connectivity. The command validates RXA connectivity between the controller and the host where the member resides. It also validates JMX secure connectivity between the collective controller and the collective member.
Batch group-level security
Batch roles are defined by the batch container, where you can now define the batchGroupAdmin role and the batchGroupMonitor role to have group-level access to jobs. These roles are described in Securing the Liberty batch environment.
[17.0.0.4 and later]
MicroProfile open tracing
Enable automatic distributed tracing in JAX-RS applications with the opentracing-1.0 feature.
JavaServer Faces Container
Configure third-party JavaServer Faces (JSF) 2.2 implementations with the jsfContainer-2.2 feature.
[17.0.0.3 and later]
MicroProfile programming model support
The highlight of this release is the MicroProfile programming model support. Liberty supports the Eclipse MicroProfile programming model for developing microservice applications for the enterprise.
Use features in the MicroProfile programming model to develop microservice applications for the enterprise. MicroProfile features extend the definition of Java EE for the microservices environment. Explore the following features in MicroProfile 1.2:
Liberty in IBM Cloud Private
Run Liberty applications in IBM® Cloud Private. Liberty combined with a rich palette of middleware technologies that are available within the content catalog of IBM Cloud Private reduces the amount of overhead that is required to integrate middleware components such as databases, caching solutions, and messaging solutions, which allows organizations to focus on creating new insights to drive better business outcomes.
OpenAPI support
Generate REST API documentation with OpenAPI with the openapi-3.0 feature, which supports the OpenAPI V3 specification. Document your REST APIs and deploy your web applications to a Liberty server. You then can view the generated API documentation in a browser. The openapi-3.0 feature is like the next version of the apiDiscovery-1.0 feature, which supports Swagger V2 documents.
OpenID Connect Provider
Configure dynamic outbound SSL support for an OpenID Connect Provider or an OpenID Connect Client. Also, invoke a revocation endpoint for an OpenID Connect Provider.
[17.0.0.2 and later]
Social login support
Configure social login so that users can log in to websites that are hosted on Liberty with their social media accounts, such as Facebook or Google.
[17.0.0.1 and later]
Product Insights server on Bluemix®
Register Liberty servers with the Product Insights service on IBM Cloud to report usage metrics from your on-premises or cloud-based Liberty servers. From a single Product Insights service dashboard, you can track many on-premises or cloud-based Liberty servers, plus other products such as WebSphere® Application Server traditional and IBM Integration Bus.
REST API documentation
Discover REST API documentation on a Liberty server in more ways.
[16.0.0.4 and later]
JSON Web Token
Configure JSON Web Token with the jwt-1.0 feature.
Java Batch tool
Use the Java Batch tool of Admin Center to view the progress and status of your Java batch jobs.
[16.0.0.3 and later]
JMX connection
Configure a secure JMX connection with the restConnector-2.0 feature, which supersedes the restConnector-1.0 feature and does not include the jaxrs-1.1 feature.

Continuous fix pack delivery

WebSphere Application Server Liberty follows a continuous delivery process. Instead of delivering a large amount of content in a new version, new content is delivered gradually as optional installable features on top of each fix pack. Because of the Liberty zero-migration policy, you can update to the latest fix pack and then continue to use your existing configuration and applications, with no unexpected change in behavior.

In contrast to WebSphere Application Server traditional, which has different fix packs for each version, Liberty has a single service stream. A Liberty fix pack contains the same content regardless of which product version you purchased. Fix pack 16.0.0.2 is the next Liberty fix pack after 8.5.5.9.

A diagram that shows a single line of fix packs that apply to both V8.5.5 and V9.0

For more information about installing Liberty 16.0.0.2, see Installing Liberty. For information about installing previous 8.5.5.x fix packs, see Installing Liberty in the WebSphere Application Server V8.5.5 documentation.

Fix pack numbering

Beginning with fix pack 16.0.0.2, WebSphere Application Server Liberty fix packs use the following numbering scheme:

Y.R.M.F

where:
  • Y = year, last 2 digits
  • R = release
  • M = modification
  • F = fix pack release during the year

For example, fix pack 16.0.0.2 refers to year 2016, release 0, modification 0, and the second fix pack of the year. For the third fix pack of 2018, the fix name would be 18.0.0.3.

This numbering change applies only to Liberty. WebSphere Application Server traditional fix packs continue to follow the V.R.M.F numbering scheme, where the letters stand for version, release, modification, and fix pack.

All features are installed by default

When you install fix pack 16.0.0.2 and later, all features that apply to your Liberty edition are installed by default. When you install Liberty by using Installation Manager, you no longer need to specify the user.feature or user.addon parameters. Specifying these parameters installs only the features that you list on the parameters. When you update existing installations to 16.0.0.2 or later, the extra features not automatically installed. To install more Liberty assets, use the installUtility command. For more information, see Installing assets using the installUtility command.

You can remove unwanted or unneeded Liberty features by using the Liberty installUtility command or the minify process.

If you use Installation Manager, Version 1.8.5 or later is required

To install or update to fix pack 16.0.0.2 or later by using Installation Manager, you must use Installation Manager 1.8.5 or later. For example, if you are updating from fix pack 8.5.5.9 and are currently using Installation Manager 1.8.3, you must first update Installation Manager before you can update Liberty.

For more information about installing Liberty by using Installation Manager, see Installing Liberty using Installation Manager.

Common IBM Java SDKs

Common IBM Java SDKs for Java 8 and Java 7.1 that are not modified for WebSphere Application Server are now available for Liberty. Because these IBM Java SDK offerings do not follow the WebSphere fix pack schedule, you can receive Java security updates faster, as they become available.

See more information about installing the IBM Java SDKs by using Installation Manager:

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