MicroStream Becomes an Eclipse Project

We are happy to announce, that MicroStream becomes now an Eclipse project. The development of MicroStream started already 10 years ago. In 2019 we have launched the very first official MicroStream release version 1. Until 2021, MicroStream was closed source. In August 2021, we have published MicroStream version 5 as open source. Now, MicroStream becomes an Eclipse project. To be more precise, MicroStream is even divided into 2 Eclipse projects.

MicroStream Serializer >> Eclipse Serializer

MicroStream is based on a fundamentally new written serialization that is the core of the MicroStream persistence. MicroStream Serializer becomes now Eclipse Serializer. The major differences of Eclipse Serializer to Java serialization and other encodings is, that Eclipse Serializer is highly secure and no longer has the limitations of Java serialization. Eclipse Serializer neither transfers code, nor class information, but data only. Through deserialization, Eclipse Serializer never executes code. Injecting and executing malicious code that is used for deserialization attacks is now impossible. To serialize objects, developers don’t have to implement the interface Serializable anymore. Eclipse Serializer uses a highly optimized byte format that is built for handling very complex data structure. The depth of an object graph is not limited and using cyrcular references is troublefree. Eclipse Serializer can also handle class changes. Adding, renaming and removing fields is handled by the serializer automatically. For more complex cases, developers can implement an individual legacy type-mapping. The launch of Eclipse Serializer version 1.0 is still scheduled for April 2023.

MicroStream Persistence >> EclipseStore

MicroStream Persistence also becomes now an Eclipse project. The codename EclipseStore has not been confirmed officially by the Eclipse Foundation so far. Because of EclipseStore uses Eclipse Serializer as a dependency, EclipseStore will be launched right after Eclipse Serializer. So far, the launch of EclipseStore version 1.0 is also still scheduled for April 2023.

EclipseStore version 1.0 will be based on the current MicroStream version 7. Because MicroStream version 8 is not yet ready for launch, but will deliver great new features, we will also launch MicroStream version 8, soon. This means, through a short transition period, two implementations will be available. The MicroStream version 8 code will then transfered to the EclipseStore project and MicroStream 8 will become EclipseStore version 2. At this point, the MicroStream project will be finished, and only the EclipseStore will be further developed. Migrating from MicroStream to EclipseStore will be easy.

With MicroStream Cluster you can run both, MicroStream and EclipseStore apps to build distributed applications.

MicroStream Becomes a Standard

In the 3rd and final step, MicroStream will become a new standard. We’re going to launch a working group to standarize the EclipseStore API analog to the Jakarta Persistence API (JPA). EclipseStore will then become the reference implementation. This will allow other providers to fork EclipseStream, develop their own implementation and give users the ability to choose between different providers – similar to the JDK. This will lead to competition, better implementations, new innovations, faster progress, higher adoption and usage of our base technology, from which all parties will finally benefit.