Features Catalog

Payara Platform Features Catalog

This page offers an overview of the features provided by Payara Platform products. The majority of our features are available in both Payara Server and Payara Micro software and in both the Community and Enterprise Editions, but if a specific feature is only available in one of our products, it is noted in the description.

Almost all features available in the Payara Platform Enterprise Edition may be manually added and built in Payara Platform Community Edition as it’s an open source project, but may or may not be supported in the next release.

A PDF version of this guide is also available below:

Features Catalog PDF

Browse Features by Category

Payara Platform Comes with Powerful Features Ready to Use Out-of-the-Box

Want to see how Payara integrates with other tools or build on the Payara Platform and technologies with the products and tools you need for your enterprise environments? Browse our growing library of ecosystem integrations.

Ecosystem Catalog

Administration

FeatureDescription
Admin ConsoleThe Admin Console is an easy-to-navigate graphical interface to configure Payara Server and your applications that includes help documentation.
Admin Console Auditing ServiceIf you are concerned with the changes that are performed on the domain, you can activate the Admin Console Auditing Service in Payara Server. It will keep track of all actions that are executed (manually or through the asadmin CLI tool) so that you can later determine if any problem was linked to a certain command that was executed.
AMX Beans Use AMX Beans to access, configure and monitor Payara Server with a vendor neutral protocol. It can be accessed by client applications such as JConsole, VisualVM, or Azul Mission Control.
Asadmin CLIThe asadmin CLI is a command line interface to perform quick administrative tasks from a script. Using the asadmin CLI eliminates potential errors when performing manual actions with the Admin Console.
Asadmin RecorderThe Asadmin Recorder feature will allow you to record the actions you take in the Payara Server Admin Console as asadmin commands. Once enabled, the asadmin command for the corresponding action will be recorded to a file. Configuring your Payara Server and instances is ideally performed using asadmin commands rather than the Admin Console. Repeating manual actions in the Admin Console can cause errors and is time consuming. The Asadmin Recorder allows you to learn about the corresponding asadmin commands of the manual actions you perform so that you can automate the setup of the domain in the future.
Auto-naming Each resource needs a unique name so that it can be identified. In autoscaling environments, this requirement become a burden and the Auto-Naming features helps by automatically assigning names to ensure there is no conflict.
Certificate Management Certificate Management asadmin commands in Payara Server is an Extension to make it easier and faster to install and update SSL certificates while preventing mistakes.
Log Message Formatting Log Message Formatting allows easy integration of logging messages in the Payara Platform, even when the log files are processed by an external Log Management Tool that changes the format of the logging messages.
Log RotationLog Rotation ensures log files are kept to a manageable size in the Payara Platform.
Password Alias Password Alias allows use of sensitive data (such as passwords) in asadmin commands and the Admin Console while keeping them hidden from users who should not have access to them. Available in Payara Server Only
REST APIThe Payara Server REST API can be integrated in your applications configuration data and interact with the Payara Server configuration through a REST interface.
Secure AdministrationSecure Administration prevents unauthorized access when performing Payara Server configuration remotely by requiring an SSL encrypted connection with a username and password.
Variable Replacement Simplify configuration maintenance with Variable Replacement. Create a single configuration that references Environment variables, JVM system properties, and MicroProfile Config variables to adapt to each environment (test, acceptance, production, etc).
Upgrade Tool Easily update your Payara Enterprise installation from one version to another using a single asadmin command. There is no need to import your custom SSL certificate into the Payara TrustStore and import it again when upgrading your Payara environment as Payara Server can read from multiple KeyStores and TrustStores. The upgrade tool includes a rollback-server command to restore the domain configuration from the backup should anything go wrong during your upgrade. Available in Payara Enterprise Only

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Cloud

Docker Instance

A Payara instance created on a Docker node is a Docker Instance. When the container starts, the instance can join a Deployment Group. At registration time, the instance can use a specified configuration available on the Domain and when it joins a Deployment Group, all application assigned to that Deployment Group are also deployed on the Docker Instance.

Docker Nodes

The Docker Node feature in Payara Platform allows you to create additional nodes and Payara instances running within a Docker container. Both your instances and Docker container are under the control of the Domain Server and can be managed using either the Admin Console or the Asadmin CLI tool.

Deployment Group

Deployment Group

The Deployment Group is the clustering feature of Payara Server. It can be used as a target for deployments and other resources so that each are performed on the instances assigned to the Deployment Group. Payara Server’s Deployment Groups are an extremely flexible form of clustering as each instance can be part of one or more Deployment Groups. When a Deployment Group is restarted, a rolling restart of each instance is performed to ensure the information contained in the Domain Data Grid is kept.

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Diagnostics

FeatureDescription
Request Tracing Request Tracing in the Payara Platform helps you understand the cause of slow application performance. It’s compatible with the MicroProfile OpenTracing specification so you can use any data generated in any OpenTracing tool (such as Zipkin and Jaeger).
Slow SQL Logger Detect and log slow SQL statements with the Slow SQL Logger in Payara Platform. Not only learn why some requests are slow but to also receive the executed query so you can improve performance within the application or database.
SQL Trace ListenersDevelop custom auditing, error handling, and monitoring components with SQL Trace Listeners. Payara Platform SQL Trace Listeners track calls to the database and can be enabled globally on a data source if the class implementing it is on the server’s classpath, or they can be enabled on application-specific data sources by including them in the application’s WAR or EAR file.
SQL TracingSQL Tracing in the Payara Platform gives you a detailed look at what the application is doing to identify the cause of issues and a view of all queries performed.

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Domain Data Grid

Domain Data Grid

The Domain Data Grid makes it easy to create a cluster of Payara instances running your application and works right out-of-the-box in variety of network topologies with little to no configuration needed for Amazon AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, Kubernetes, and LAN environments. The Domain Data Grid can also share and store information for your application, so it is accessible by all instances.

Data Grid Encryption

The Data Grid Encryption offers end-to-end encryption to store and exchange sensitive information between instances securely. Information exchanged with Data Grid Encryption can only be read by the Payara instance.

High Availability

High Availability for the Domain Data Grid ensures there is always a backup of application and system information, such as web session information, stored in the event an instance goes down. The data is redistributed when a new instance joins the Domain Data Grid.

JCache

With the JCache functionality you can define how data is stored in a Cache in a standard way. Since the JCache implementation in Payara Platform is provided by Hazelcast, which also is used in the Domain Data Grid functionality, you have a robust data grid acting as a caching tier.

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Health Check Service

MicroProfile Health Check

Using MicroProfile Health Check with Payara Platform allows developers to create your own health checks for your applications and automate the verification of your system’s health status using your custom checks.

Notification Service

Notification Service works in the background to allow services such as JMX Monitoring, Payara Health Check, and Request Tracing to send messages to the notifiers.

Notifiers

Payara Platform Notifiers deliver monitoring and alert messages to external systems. Payara Enterprise has a list of notifiers bundled by default, but in Community they have to be installed manually.

Notifiers API

The Notifier API allows third parties to create Payara Platform notifiers for their system and allows developers to customize notifiers for their needs.

Monitoring

JMX Monitoring

JMX Monitoring in Payara Server allows you to gather information from MBeans and push it to external systems for processing and reporting without the need for external applications such as JConsole or VisualVM.

Monitoring Service

The Payara Platform Monitoring Service identifies possible issues for troubleshooting, checks performance against specified rules, and sends alerts of potential problem areas.

Payara InSight

Payara InSight is the built-in monitoring console and provides a visual representation of all metrics collected by Payara Server, including MicroProfile Metrics defined via annotations, making it possible to track application-level performance and status.

REST Monitoring

REST Monitoring in Payara Server makes monitoring data accessible over a standard HTTP connection.

MicroProfile

FeatureDescription
MicroProfile Config

MicroProfile Config is ideal for cloud-native applications as it allows you to modify the application configuration outside your application without needing the application to be repackaged and redeployed. Payara Platform provides several out-of-the-box config sources you can use in your application to find information about the Payara runtime environment. It integrates with the asadmin CLI tool and we have also added the automatic reload of the properties after a time interval as a functionality.
MicroProfile Config Sources
Use MicroProfile Config Sources to lookup a value associated with a configuration key. The values can be managed through the Admin Console , asadmin CLI, or the external system the value is stored in, like a Vault.
MicroProfile Fault Tolerance

Using microservices poses a new set of challenges as they need to cope with the distributed aspects. Services can be unavailable, slow to respond, or there could be network issues. With the MicroProfile Fault Tolerance policies, you can configure what need to be done in those cases, in a declarative way. It allows you to define retries, timeouts, default values and the concept of a circuit breaker.
MicroProfile Health Check
Using MicroProfile Health Check with Payara Platform allows developers to create your own health checks for your applications and automate the verification of your system’s health status using your custom checks.
MicroProfile JWT Authentication
MicroProfile JWT Authentication specification defines an extension on OAuth2 and OpenIdConnect to allow authentication and authorization of user requests that are secure and tokens that do not require external validation. MicroProfile JWT Authentication in Payara Platform increases the independence of applications and allows for features like single sign-on by identifying the caller in a request without having a single point of failure to validate the request.
MicroProfile Metrics
MicroProfile Metrics provide detailed insight into the status of the application or your system. They can be the basis to determine the health of your system and make it possible to analyze the time series of values to identify trends and act before the system experiences problems. MicroProfile Metrics exposes the metrics in the Prometheus format by default (the most popular open-source product for gathering metrics).
MicroProfile OpenTracing
The MicroProfile OpenTracing allows easier tracing of the flow of a request in microservices environments, helping you understand the different steps of a user request and why it is slow at various parts of the process. The MicroProfile Open Tracing functionality is limited to JAX-RS calls and is expanded within the Payara Platform in the Request Tracing Service which can be used with many other types of requests.
MicroProfile Rest Client
The MicroProfile Rest Client provides a type-safe approach to invoke RESTful services over HTTP. Calling another endpoint in code is a very technical oriented task with the Jakarta EE RestClient Builder. Using the MicroProfile Rest Client, the call looks like any other JVM (Java Virtual Machine) call but in fact it is a remote call where parameters and return value are converted to and from JSON format (or the format defined on the method).
MicroProfile OpenAPI
The MicroProfile OpenAPI provides a standard interface for documenting the exposed RESTful APIs. Documentation of your RESTful APIs is important for the parties that are using them. The OpenAPI document describes this in a standardized way and it can be generated from your application code containing the JAX-RS endpoints.

Security

The Payara Platform Enterprise Edition includes several security features as part of the standard installation (you do not need to install them separately).

OAuth 2.0

The Payara Platform supports OAuth2, which is similar to the SAML protocol but uses JSON instead of XML. OAuth 2.0 is an authorization framework that enables a third-party application to obtain limited access to an HTTP service.

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OpenIDConnect (OIDC)

Use the OpenIdConnect (OIDC) support within the Payara Platform products to achieve a Single Sign-on with the users credentials managed by a third-party. If a user has already been authenticated for one of your applications, he or she should not be asked for credentials when he accesses one of the other applications during the same browser session. This can be used when the applications are running on different servers or even on a mixture of Payara Server and Payara Micro.

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LDAP

The authentication and authorization information required for your application can be looked up in your LDAP server. This allows you to combine this information for many services within your application regardless of the technology with which they are written.

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Miscellaneous

FeatureDescription
Admin Console Auditing ServiceIf you are concerned with the changes that are performed on the domain, you can activate the Admin Console Auditing Service in Payara Server. It will keep track of all actions that are executed (manually or through the asadmin CLI tool) so that you can later determine if any problem was linked to a certain command that was executed.
Classloader ConfigurationUsing the Classloader Configuration delegation options it is possible to include other versions of some dependencies that are included within the server. This allows updating frameworks like Mojarra and EclipseLink other than the ones provided by Payara Server.
Concurrent CDI Bean Loading One of the tasks that take some time when you deploy the application is to identify all CDI beans and prepare the Bean Management system. To speed this process, it can be performed in a multi-threaded way. However, there are some cases where this multi-threaded approach results in some issues and cannot be used.
OSGI DeploymentIf you develop OSGI modules and Web or Enterprise artifacts within your enterprise, you can run them both on Payara Server. There is no need to look for two systems and can use the functionality and features you are already familiar with.
Persistent EJB Timers Using a Persistent EJB Timer ensures an execution is performed even when the server is not running at the scheduled time. The execution is performed in that case as soon as the platform is ready again. The Payara Platform also has the option to store the information in the Domain Data Grid. This removes the requirement to have a separate database to store the information. Using the Domain Data Grid also means that the information is available if one of the instances is running but the information is lost when the entire domain is down.

Payara Platform DocumentationEcosystem Catalog

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