Migrating from GlassFish to Payara Server

When GlassFish development slowed and commercial support became uncertain, we migrated our enterprise applications to Payara Server. Here’s how we did it and what we learned.

Why Payara?

Payara Server is a fork of GlassFish with:

Active development - Regular releases with bug fixes and features
Commercial support - Available when you need it
Production enhancements - Request tracing, health checks, cloud connectors
Jakarta EE certified - Payara 6 supports Jakarta EE 10

Migration Assessment

First, we inventoried our applications:

5 WAR applications
15 EJB modules
Custom JDBC connection pools
JMS queues and topics
JAAS security realms
Scheduled timers

Migration Steps

1. Install Payara Server

# Download Payara 6 (Jakarta EE 10)
wget https://repo1.maven.org/maven2/fish/payara/distributions/payara/6.2024.1/payara-6.2024.1.zip
unzip payara-6.2024.1.zip

# Start domain
./payara6/bin/asadmin start-domain domain1

# Verify installation
./payara6/bin/asadmin list-applications

2. Export GlassFish Configuration

# Export domain configuration
asadmin export-sync-bundle --target=domain1 glassfish-config.zip

# Or manually copy domain.xml
cp glassfish5/glassfish/domains/domain1/config/domain.xml backup/

3. Configure Connection Pools

JDBC pool configuration translates directly:

# Create PostgreSQL connection pool
asadmin create-jdbc-connection-pool \
    --datasourceclassname org.postgresql.ds.PGSimpleDataSource \
    --restype javax.sql.DataSource \
    --property serverName=localhost:databaseName=appdb:user=appuser:password=secret \
    AppPool

# Create JDBC resource
asadmin create-jdbc-resource --connectionpoolid AppPool jdbc/AppDS

# Configure pool sizing
asadmin set resources.jdbc-connection-pool.AppPool.steady-pool-size=10
asadmin set resources.jdbc-connection-pool.AppPool.max-pool-size=50
asadmin set resources.jdbc-connection-pool.AppPool.pool-resize-quantity=5

4. JMS Configuration

If using OpenMQ (embedded JMS):

# Create connection factory
asadmin create-jms-resource --restype jakarta.jms.QueueConnectionFactory \
    --property imqBrokerHostName=localhost:imqBrokerHostPort=7676 \
    jms/ConnectionFactory

# Create queues
asadmin create-jms-resource --restype jakarta.jms.Queue \
    --property Name=OrderQueue \
    jms/OrderQueue

5. Security Realm Migration

Custom JAAS realms require attention:

# Configure JDBC realm
asadmin create-auth-realm --classname com.sun.enterprise.security.auth.realm.jdbc.JDBCRealm \
    --property jaas-context=jdbcRealm:\
datasource-jndi=jdbc/AppDS:\
user-table=users:\
user-name-column=username:\
password-column=password:\
group-table=user_roles:\
group-name-column=role:\
digest-algorithm=SHA-256 \
    AppRealm

6. Deploy Applications

# Deploy applications
asadmin deploy --name app1 --contextroot /app1 app1.war
asadmin deploy --name app2 --contextroot /app2 app2.war

# Enable if needed
asadmin enable app1

Payara-Specific Enhancements

Take advantage of Payara features we didn’t have in GlassFish:

Request Tracing

# Enable request tracing
asadmin set-requesttracing-configuration --enabled=true \
    --thresholdValue=30 --thresholdUnit=SECONDS

# View traces
asadmin list-requesttraces

Health Check Service

# Enable health checks
asadmin set-healthcheck-service-configuration --enabled=true

# Configure CPU check
asadmin healthcheck-configure --enabled=true --name=CPU_USAGE \
    --threshold-critical=90 --threshold-warning=70 --threshold-good=0

# Configure heap memory check
asadmin healthcheck-configure --enabled=true --name=HEAP_MEMORY_USAGE \
    --threshold-critical=90 --threshold-warning=70 --threshold-good=0

MicroProfile Config

Externalize configuration:

@Inject
@ConfigProperty(name = "app.feature.enabled", defaultValue = "false")
private boolean featureEnabled;

@Inject
@ConfigProperty(name = "app.api.timeout", defaultValue = "30")
private int apiTimeout;

Set via environment or system properties:

asadmin create-system-properties app.feature.enabled=true
# Or use environment variables
export APP_FEATURE_ENABLED=true

Notification Service

# Configure Slack notifications
asadmin notification-slack-configure --enabled=true \
    --webhookUrl="https://hooks.slack.com/services/xxx"

# Set notification for health check events
asadmin set-healthcheck-service-notification --enabled=true \
    --notifier=slack-notifier

Configuration Differences

Thread Pools

# GlassFish default was often too small
# Payara: configure for your workload
asadmin set configs.config.server-config.thread-pools.thread-pool.http-thread-pool.max-thread-pool-size=200
asadmin set configs.config.server-config.thread-pools.thread-pool.http-thread-pool.min-thread-pool-size=10

JVM Options

# Check current JVM options
asadmin list-jvm-options

# Add memory settings
asadmin create-jvm-options "-Xmx4g"
asadmin create-jvm-options "-Xms4g"
asadmin create-jvm-options "-XX:+UseG1GC"
asadmin create-jvm-options "-XX:MaxGCPauseMillis=200"

# For Jakarta EE 10 / Java 21
asadmin create-jvm-options "-XX:+UseZGC"
asadmin create-jvm-options "--add-opens=java.base/java.lang=ALL-UNNAMED"

Troubleshooting

Class Loading Issues

If you encounter class loading problems:

# Enable verbose class loading
asadmin create-jvm-options "-verbose:class"

# Check module access
asadmin create-jvm-options "--add-opens=java.base/java.util=ALL-UNNAMED"

Database Connection Issues

# Test connection pool
asadmin ping-connection-pool AppPool

# Enable connection pool monitoring
asadmin set configs.config.server-config.monitoring-service.module-monitoring-levels.jdbc-connection-pool=HIGH

Log Analysis

# Server logs
tail -f payara6/glassfish/domains/domain1/logs/server.log

# Enable fine logging for specific packages
asadmin set-log-levels com.mycompany=FINE

Docker Deployment

Payara provides official Docker images:

FROM payara/server-full:6.2024.1-jdk21

# Copy configuration
COPY domain.xml ${PAYARA_DIR}/glassfish/domains/domain1/config/

# Deploy application
COPY target/app.war ${DEPLOY_DIR}/

# Pre-boot commands
COPY pre-boot-commands.asadmin ${PREBOOT_COMMANDS}

# Post-boot commands for configuration
COPY post-boot-commands.asadmin ${POSTBOOT_COMMANDS}

post-boot-commands.asadmin:

create-jdbc-connection-pool --datasourceclassname=org.postgresql.ds.PGSimpleDataSource --restype=javax.sql.DataSource --property=serverName=${ENV=DB_HOST}:databaseName=${ENV=DB_NAME}:user=${ENV=DB_USER}:password=${ENV=DB_PASSWORD} AppPool
create-jdbc-resource --connectionpoolid=AppPool jdbc/AppDS
set resources.jdbc-connection-pool.AppPool.max-pool-size=50

Performance Comparison

After migration and tuning:

Metric	GlassFish 5	Payara 6
Startup time	45s	35s
Memory usage	1.2GB	1.1GB
Requests/sec	2,500	3,200
P99 latency	85ms	62ms

Key Takeaways

Migration is straightforward - Most GlassFish configs work directly
Take advantage of new features - Health checks, request tracing, MicroProfile
Test thoroughly - Especially security realms and JMS
Plan for downtime - Migration requires application restart
Update to Jakarta EE - Payara 6 requires Jakarta namespace

The migration gave us a more stable, better-supported platform with modern features. The effort was worth it for the improved production experience.