W3C Releases Jigsaw 2.0 Web Server

Dear friend of W3C,

today, W3C has published two news releases on two topics. Please find
attached the first one about the release of Jigsaw 2.0, the latest version
of our award-winning web server. The online version of this press release is
at http://www.w3.org/Press/1999/Jigsaw-2.0

The other press release discusses a new W3C Recommendation: the WebCGM
Profile, a profile for the Computer Graphics Metafile (CGM) file format to
be used in Web contexts - and possibly beyond.

Of course, we are looking forward to your questions and comments on these
releases.

Best regards,

Josef Dietl


                      W3C Releases Jigsaw 2.0 Web Server

   Contact
          Josef Dietl, <[1]jdietl@w3.org>, +33 4.92.38.79.72

   America --
          Ian Jacobs, <[2]jacobs@w3.org>, +1.212.684.1814

   Europe --
          Ned Mitchell, <[3]ned@ala.com>, +33 1 43 22 79 56
          Andrew Lloyd, <[4]allo@ala.com>, +44 127 367 5100
     _________________________________________________________________

   [5]http://www.w3.org/ -- 21 January 1999 -- W3C released a stable open
   source version of Jigsaw, the award-winning Java Web server it
   developed for experimenting with new server technologies. Jigsaw
   version 2.0 provides an architecture that greatly facilitates
   evaluation of new Web protocols. Furthermore, Jigsaw offers faster Web
   access through the use of HTTP/1.1 and an open source implementation
   of the Java servlet interface. "Jigsaw allows anybody to try out ideas
   on how to make the Web faster", says Yves Lafon, Chief Architect of
   Jigsaw. "This open competition of ideas is needed to keep the Web
   successful".

   Jigsaw is implemented in Java, so will run on most platforms out of
   the box. Jigsaw 2.0 has been tested on Windows 95, Windows NT and
   Solaris 2.x. Successful installations on OS/2, MacOS, BeOS, and AIX
   have also been reported. Thanks to smart caching mechanisms, Jigsaw
   runs at least as fast as other popular Web servers.

Designed for New Ideas

   Evaluating specifications of Web technology by implementation is a
   very important part of W3C's mission. Jigsaw is designed to make it
   easy to implement and evaluate new ideas for Web protocols and
   servers. New protocol parts can be added to the server without
   restarting it or affecting the served content.

   W3C has been using Jigsaw for to evaluate many of its technologies.
   These include:

   Development of new HTTP/1.1 protocol standard.
          Designed in the IETF with significant contributions by the W3C
          Team, HTTP/1.1 provides significant performance benefits over
          the previous version. The HTTP/1.1 implementation in Jigsaw has
          been used to demonstrate these performance benefits.

   Distributed publishing.
          Jigsaw provides a simple interface for publishing documents on
          the Web. The W3C Team and external editors of W3C
          specifications use Jigsaw in their day-to-day work to publish
          documents on the W3C web site.

   Base for PICS label bureau.
          PICS is the W3C technology for content-labeling, and a label
          bureau allows third parties to label Web content. Jigsaw can be
          used to run a PICS label bureau.

   RDF syntax checker.
          RDF is the W3C technology for describing metadata. W3C offers a
          Jigsaw-based public service to validate the syntax of RDF
          documents.

   HTTP extension testbed.
          W3C has developed a framework for systematic extensions to the
          HTTP protocol. The technology is currently under review by the
          IETF, and an implementation in Jigsaw is used to test it.

   Shared Web caches via IP multicast.
          Sharing different Web caches between users can greatly improve
          their performance. Jigsaw contains an IP multicast-based
          protocol for cache sharing.

   There are also numerous Jigsaw-based experiments outside of W3C. The
   fact that Jigsaw has been available as free open-source software from
   the beginning allows everyone to benefit from its extensibility and
   contribute to its development.

Better Performance through HTTP/1.1 Standard

   Users served by Jigsaw 2.0 will welcome the performance gain provided
   by the HTTP/1.1 standard, which makes better use of Internet resources
   than HTTP 1.0.

   The HTTP 1.1 protocol:
     * Allows persistent connections ("keep alive") so that several HTTP
       requests may be sent over the same connection. This reduces time
       spent on redundant connections.
     * Fills IP packets more effectively (reducing the number of packets
       sent),
     * Implements pipelining, which means multiple requests may be sent
       without waiting for replies from the server (reducing the total
       elapsed time between the initial request and the final reply).

   Note that since [6]Jigsaw and [7]HTTP are both W3C Activities, their
   architects worked closely to fine-tune Jigsaw's implementation of the
   latest version of the protocol.

   For more information about performance benefits offered by HTTP 1.1.,
   please consult W3C's [8]investigation of performance effects of HTTP
   1.1, CSS1, and PNG. There is also a more general discussion of
   benefits in an article entitled [9]W3C Recommendations Reduce 'World
   Wide Wait'

Servlets Support

   Jigsaw 2.0 supports the latest version of the Java servlet API.

   Jigsaw also supports CGI scripts, server-side includes, and "Jigsaw
   Resources", which provide a fast and most powerful way to perform
   server-side tasks.

Easy Administration

   The JigAdmin tool that comes with Jigsaw 2.0 gives administrators
   control over all the resources handled by the server as well as the
   server's own configuration (timeouts, etc.). JigAdmin provides a
   simple interface so that administrators don't need to edit
   configuration files by hand. And, they don't have to restart the
   server every time they change the configuration or add new resources
   to be served. Jigsaw is also a snap to configure to run as a proxy
   server.

   For more information about Jigsaw, see [10]http://www.w3.org/Jigsaw/
     _________________________________________________________________

About the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)

   The W3C was created to lead the Web to its full potential by
   developing common protocols that promote its evolution and ensure its
   interoperability. It is an international industry consortium jointly
   run by the [11]MIT Laboratory for Computer Science (MIT LCS) in the
   USA, the [12]National Institute for Research in Computer Science and
   Control (INRIA) in France and [13]Keio University in Japan. Services
   provided by the Consortium include: a repository of information about
   the World Wide Web for developers and users, reference code
   implementations to embody and promote standards, and various prototype
   and sample applications to demonstrate use of new technology. To date,
   over 300 organizations are [14]Members of the Consortium.

   For more information about the World Wide Web Consortium, see
   [15]http://www.w3.org/

   $Date: 1999/01/21 17:37:30 $

References

   1. mailto:jdietl@w3.org
   2. mailto:jacobs@w3.org
   3. mailto:ned@ala.com
   4. mailto:allo@ala.com
   5. http://www.w3.org/
   6. http://www.w3.org/Jigsaw
   7. http://www.w3.org/Protocols
   8. http://www.w3.org/Protocols/HTTP/Performance/Pipeline.html
   9. http://www.w3.org/Protocols/NL-PerfNote.html
  10. http://www.w3.org/Jigsaw/
  11. http://www.lcs.mit.edu/
  12. http://www.inria.fr/
  13. http://www.keio.ac.jp/
  14. http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Member/List
  15. http://www.w3.org/

Received on Thursday, 21 January 1999 17:36:39 UTC