Ken Finnigan

Principal Software Engineer, Red Hat

Ken Finnigan

Ken is a Principal Software Engineer for Red Hat Middleware and has been a consultant and software engineer for 20 years with enterprises throughout the world. Ken and Bob McWhirter lead the WildFly Swarm project, which aims to bring together the worlds of microservices and Java EE. Ken has previously served as the project lead for LiveOak, along with other JBoss projects. Ken is currently writing “Java Microservices in Action” and has previously written two books, including "JBoss Weld CDI for Java Platform."

Recent Posts

Are App Servers Dead in the Age of Kubernetes? (Part 2)

Are App Servers Dead in the Age of Kubernetes? (Part 2)

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By Ken Finnigan

Welcome to the second in a series of posts on Kubernetes, application servers, and the future. Part 1, Kubernetes is the new application operating environment, discussed Kubernetes and its place in application development. In this part, we explore application servers and their role in relation to Kubernetes.

You may recall from  that we were exploring the views put forth in Why Kubernetes is The New Application Server and thinking about what those views mean for Java EE, Jakarta EE, Eclipse MicroProfile, and application servers. Is it a curtain call for application servers? Are we seeing the start of an imminent decline in their favor and usage?

Before answering that, we need to discuss the use case for application servers. Then can we decide whether it’s still a valid use case.

Continue reading “Are App Servers Dead in the Age of Kubernetes? (Part 2)”

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Kubernetes is the new application operating environment (Part 1)

Kubernetes is the new application operating environment (Part 1)

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By Ken Finnigan

This is the first in a series of articles that consider the role of Kubernetes and application servers. Do application servers need to exist? Where does the current situation leave developers trying to choose the right path forward for their applications?

Why Kubernetes is the new application server

By now you’ve likely read “Why Kubernetes is The New Application Server” and you might be wondering what that means for you. How does it impact Java EE or Jakarta EE and Eclipse MicroProfile? What about application servers or fat JARs? Is it the end as we’ve known it for nearly two decades?

In reality, it doesn’t impact the worldview for most. It’s in line with the efforts of a majority of vendors around Docker and Kubernetes deployments over the last few years. In addition, there’s greater interest in service mesh infrastructures, such as Istio, and how they can further assist with managing Kubernetes deployments.

Continue reading “Kubernetes is the new application operating environment (Part 1)”

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