The Apache Directory team has announced the release of MINA, a network application framework, version 0.9.

Apache MINA (Multipurpose Infrastructure for Network Applications) is a network application framework which helps users develop network applications easily by providing abstractions of network and protocol I/O layers. The MINA project website includes resources such as an introductory presentation (PPT/PowerPoint (with animations) or PDF (without animations)) and an implementation demo movie. Additionally, 6 examples are provided to help you learn MINA even under serious time constraint.

Feature List:

   * Abstract API which supports various transport types (TCP and UDP)
   * Very easy to learn
   * Unit test friendly
   * Extensible architecture
   * In-VM pipe communication
   * Built-in leader-followers thread pool
   * Support for SSL/TLS including StartTLS
   * Support for text-based protocols
   * Support for stream-based I/O

Changes since 0.8.x:

   * Revamped the overall API reflecting user feedback
   * More utility classes and methods
   * Support for StartTLS
   * Out-of-the-box protocol codecs which helps rapid implementation:
         o Object serialization codec
         o Text line codec
   * A user can specify the number of NIO Selector threads, which can improve the performance when running on a multi-processor machine.

Read more at http://directory.apache.org/subprojects/network/