Formally to be known as "Berkeley DB Java Edition," the new Java version is described by Berkeley DB makers Sleepycat Software as "a high performance, pure Java database designed for the demanding requirements of enterprise and service provider applications."

Berkeley DB is already used by customers such as Amazon, AOL, British Telecom, Cisco, EMC, Ericsson, Google, Hitachi, HP, Motorola, Openwave Systems, RSA Security, Sun, TIBCO, and Veritas, and the Java move is being welcomed as meeting a need in the market for a fast, reliable, pure Java database for developers of large-scale Java systems.

James Gosling, CTO of Sun's developer platforms group, commented: "It's great to see innovative software developers such as Sleepycat show such strong commitment to building high performance Java products," and JBoss CEO Marc Fleury was quick to note that the new version of the famous DB complements JBoss Application Server - "for these developers with specific non-relational needs such as object caching," as he expressed it.

Alex Karasulu, technical lead for the Apache Directory Project, is an instant fan too. "Berkeley DB Java Edition will, without a doubt, be the de facto standard Java API for manipulating BTree databases," he said.  "We're so convinced of this that we are
basing the Eve Directory Server on back-ends built using it."

Privately held Sleepycat Software's Berkeley DB Java Edition is immediately available "under a dual license that offers customers the benefits of both open source and proprietary software models," according to its president and CEO Mike Olson. The full product may be downloaded here.