Virgo (software)

Virgo is an open source, OSGi-based, Java application server originally developed as SpringSource dm Server by SpringSource and currently maintained by the Eclipse Foundation. SpringSource is now a division of VMware. Virgo supports the deployment of OSGi bundles and unmodified Java web applications as well as OSGi-influenced Shared Libraries WARs and Shared Services WARs.

Virgo is based on the Equinox OSGi implementation, part of the Eclipse project. A few different distributions of Virgo exist: Virgo Nano, Virgo Kernel, Virgo Server for Apache Tomcat (embedding the Apache Tomcat servlet container) and Virgo Jetty Server (embedding the Eclipse Jetty servlet container). Virgo Server for Apache Tomcat is the primary distribution for OSGi development.

Virgo uses Spring Framework which is embedded and made available as a run-time dependency to deployed applications. Virgo is licensed using the Eclipse Public License.

The SpringSource dm Server was originally announced as the SpringSource Application Platform on April 30, 2008. Version 1.0 of the SpringSource dm Server was released September 30, 2008. Version 2.0 was released January 12, 2010.

SpringSource donated dm Server to Eclipse as the Virgo project later in 2010.

In 2013 SpringSource contributions to Eclipse Virgo came to an end and the team members got reallocated to different projects. In absence of a lead, the Virgo project was about to be archived until Florian Waibel stepped in as the new project lead.

Eclipse Virgo is supported by a set of Eclipse plug-ins called Virgo Tools which allow using the Eclipse IDE for the development and testing of OSGi applications against an embedded Virgo test environment. The tools support hot deploy of individual bundles and allow deployment of plan files.