Appistry EAF Community Edition is a new, free product based on Appistry Enterprise Application Fabric (EAF). Like Appistry EAF, Community Edition lets developers and architects accelerate the creation of highly scalable distributed applications and deploy them using the latest Grid-based technology. With Appistry EAF Community Edition, enterprises large and small can quickly and easily begin building highly scalable applications in Java, Spring, .NET or C/C++ for extreme transaction processing (XTP), software-as-a-service (SaaS), cloud computing, and other data- and CPU-intensive applications.

"Mainstream application platforms such as Java EE application servers and .NET are wearing thin when it comes to supporting the growing transactional workloads generated by modern service-oriented and event-driven architectures (SOAs and EDAs)", stated Massimo Pezzini, Gartner vice president of research and distinguished analyst. "As a result, Grid-based application platforms and extreme transaction processing (XTP) middleware will become the norm for most new back-end software. We recommend that users with high-end needs become familiar with these options, and the availability of free alternatives makes this extremely easy to do."

Under the Open Distribution programme, Appistry EAF Community Edition may be downloaded for free and used on up to 5 servers or 10 CPU cores. Unlike trial software, the license to use EAF Community Edition does not expire. Furthermore, enterprises may use Community Edition for production deployment of applications, as well as for development and testing purposes.

"Appistry's new Open Distribution programme combines the best of Open Source and Commercial software", stated Kevin Haar, Appistry chief executive officer. "By making this download available we're able to let developers experience its benefits immediately, for free, and with no strings attached. Plus, they have the benefit of knowing that the product is commercially supported should they ever need it, and customers like FedEx and GeoEye count on it for mission-critical applications."

Appistry Peer2Peer is a comprehensive Web portal for developers and architects building scalable applications with Appistry products. Peer2Peer community members have access to a variety of resources including:

• product downloads
• documentation wiki
• community-based support
• community forums

In addition, community members can engage with Appistry product specialists, share code samples and examples, subscribe to RSS Feeds, and take advantage of other portal-based services.