I hadn’t planned on writing about this, so forgive me as I throw together this message. This will go out to all of my clients and followers as a way of helping get the word out about what these announcements actually mean and how folks can expect Ignition to change going forward.
Major Changes Affecting Ignition Users–announced by Oracle
- Oracle has announced that they will remove support for Java Web Start from future releases of Java. This means that they way that Ignition users launch their projects is going to change. This isn’t a major issue… and for those who currently use the native launchers (download the launcher from the Ignition gateway) this won’t be an issue at all. The solution? Use the native launcher available as a quick download from your Ignition gateway.
- The second announcement has to do with Oracles decision to no longer offer updates to older versions of Java for commercial use unless customers have a support contract. What does this mean for users? It means, they shouldn’t be using Oracle’s distribution of Java. Users should put together a plan to switch their Java installations to OpenJDK (my choice) or Azul Systems’ Zulu.
USERS NEED TO START PLANNING NOW
- You can view Oracles road map here: in a nutshell, if you are using Java 8, you have until January 2019
Major Changes Affecting Ignition Users–announced by Inductive Automation
- Starting with Ignition 7.9.11, Inductive Automation will be packaging Java Runtime within Ignition itself… this means that users will no longer need to download Java to run Ignition clients or designers. This is a great new feature AND it has the added benefit of easing the burden of managing our Java installations (making announcements, like these, from Oracle moot)
- You can view Inductive Automation’s announcement here:
- You can view Zack Scriven’s quick video about the announcement here:
Anyway… that’s it… if you have any questions, please feel free to drop me a line.
Blessings,
Walker