WebSphere Software Early Programs
Can I use new features being developed for the next version of WAS while they're still being developed?
WebSphere software early programs
is a service available for WebSphere products. It makes new features available to developers as [feature packs] before they're added to the next version of the product. This lets developers start experimenting with the features and build applications with those features to be ready when the new version comes out.
This is an attempt to balance the needs of two customer groups: Those who want a long time between product releases because it takes them a long time to migrate, and those who want access to the latest features and implementations of the latest spec versions. It's difficult to accomodate both groups, but this is an attempt. Those who want the latest sooner can install the feature packs as they're available; those focused on upgrading to the next release can wait for it to become available.
I see this process as a way to make these latest features available as portable runtimes, so that you can add them to the runtime you're already on (as long as it's WAS 6.1) without having to upgrade to a new runtime (like WAS 7.0).
Early Programs for WAS 6.1
The lastest version of WebSphere Application Server is v6.1, which implements J2EE 1.4. The next version of WAS is planned to be called v7.0 and to implement JavaEE 5, but it may be awhile before that release is available. In the meantime, IBM will be using this Early Programs service aggressively to make JavaEE 5 features available to be added to WAS 6.1 before WAS 7.0 is available. Again, the Early Programs versions should be considered alpha and should be used for development, not production. But they make WAS 7.0 development progress available earlier.
For the current list of programs, please see the early programs page.
One of them, the WAS v6.1 SOA Feature Pack, is discussed in Overview of SOA Feature Pack for WAS 6.1.
References
For more info:
