Tomcat 7 Support Added to mrc’s m-Power Dev Tool

July 10, 2012 Alex Woodie

Web applications developed with the latest iteration of the m-Power tool from mrc will be more secure, more scalable, and better performing as a result of the new support for the latest release of the Tomcat Web application server in m-Power, the vendor says.

Apache Tomcat is a pure Java HTTP server designed around Java Servlets and JavaServer Pages (JSP) technologies. The open source product is bundled into m-Power, making it an easy deployment choice for m-Power customers–many of whom are IBM i shops–although they can use any Java-based Web application server of their choosing.

Tomcat version 7 was released by the Apache Software Foundation about three weeks ago, and mrc wasted no time incorporating it into m-Power.

The new Web app server brings enhancements in a range of areas, mrc says. Security has been improved with new security options, and built-in protection against common security attacks, such as the cross-site request forgery (CSRF). Stability has been enhanced as a result of new features aimed at detecting and preventing memory leaks in outside APIs, applications, or code. Performance should also be better, thanks to “lots of internal code clean-up,” Apache says.

Tomcat 7 includes support for the latest Java Servlet 3.0 and JSP 2.2 technologies, and requires Java version 1.6. The Java Servlet 3.0 spec brings its own list of enhancements, including support for asynchronous processing, Web-fragment support, and annotation support.

m-Power generates applications in Java using a template-based approach that prevents developers from having to learn Java. The software is typically used to write Web-based applications, such as business intelligence systems and e-commerce applications that run on IBM i and any other Java-enabled platform.

The folks at mrc are encouraging all m-Power users to upgrade to the latest release of Tomcat and reap the benefits. “Tomcat 7 support will be a welcome enhancement for m-Power users,” mrc’s lead software developer Tyler Wassell says in a press release. “Now, they can instantly improve their m-Power applications simply by upgrading to the latest version of Tomcat.”

For more information on m-Power or trials, see mrc’s website at www.mrc-productivity.com.