Jakarta EE, a working group hosted by the Eclipse Foundation, today announced the general availability of the Jakarta EE 11 Platform, the latest version of its enterprise Java platform.

The new version builds on previous releases with the full platform release aligning Jakarta EE with Oracle Corp.’s support for Java 21. The release also tightens Jakarta EE focus on making modern application development faster and less error-prone.

The release introduces Jakarta Data, a specification that abstracts common data-access patterns. Jakarta Data includes built-in BasicRepository and CrudRepository supertypes that cover routine create, read, update and delete operations, while pagination and support for Query Language reduce boilerplate and potential bugs.

Alongside Jakarta Data, Jakarta EE 11 deprecates the aging Managed Beans model in favor of Contexts and Dependency Injection, extends support for Java Records and strips out lingering Java SE SecurityManager hooks to keep pace with JEP 411’s newer security approach.

The new release also offers performance gains through concurrency enhancements aimed at Java 21. Support for lightweight Virtual Threads now allows runtimes to scale to thousands of concurrent tasks with minimal overhead, a key requirement for cloud-native microservices that need to spin up short-lived operations on demand.

Jakarta EE 11 formally requires Java 17 or higher, but enterprises running Java 21 are able to access the full range of scalability improvements.

“Jakarta EE 11 introduces meaningful improvements in performance, testing and productivity,” said Mike Milinkovich, executive director of the Eclipse Foundation. “The combination of innovation along with API stability and compatibility is what enterprise developers are looking for.”

Milinkovich also recognized the efforts of Microsoft Corp. and IBM Corp.-owned Red Hat Inc. for their efforts in modernizing the compatibility testing frameworks.

“Microsoft is proud to have played a pivotal role in the successful release of Jakarta EE 11,” said Scott Hunter, vice president of product for Azure Developer Experience at Microsoft. “This new iteration brings forth the eagerly awaited Jakarta Data specification, updates critical specifications such as Persistence and prunes legacy specifications to modernize enterprise Java.”

“Our collaboration with esteemed partners IBM, Red Hat and Oracle has been instrumental in supporting Jakarta EE 11 runtimes on Azure, including Azure Kubernetes Service, Azure Red Hat OpenShift and App Service,” added Hunter. “We eagerly anticipate continuing our joint efforts to foster innovation and support the enterprise Java community.”

Image: SiliconANGLE/Reve