SpringSource, maker of the popular open-source Spring Framework for Java, on Tuesday will reveal an enterprise-class Web application server based on the open-source Apache Tomcat server, the company said.

The SpringSource tc Server adds enterprise management and diagnostic features to simplify typically monolithic application server stacks, according to SpringSource. The product, said Peter Cooper Ellis, senior vice president at SpringSource, "really preserves all of the essence of Tomcat but adds some capabilities that we think the operations team needs to be more successful with Tomcat."

With tc Server, SpringSource is eyeing open-source Tomcat users looking for additional operational and diagnostic capabilities. Another target market is Web applications currently deployed on high-end application servers, such as IBM WebSphere and Oracle WebLogic. The company believes it offers a more economical solution.

Due in the January timeframe, tc Server features the SpringSource Application Management Suite, offering centralized management of a Tomcat server farm from a single console. These servers can be managed and defined as a group, with users able to pick up an application from the centralized system and push it to the group.

"We're going to introduce a very systematic approach to deploying applications to a whole farm of servers," Ellis said.

"You can manage across a distributed group of Tomcat servers, which is new. We believe this is unique functionality that doesn't exist on the market today," he said.

Through diagnostic capabilities for Tomcat, users can detect deadlocks and dumps, which happen when two applications access the same resource.

With SpringSource employees already contributing to the Tomcat project, the company believes it can provide expertise and offer mission-critical support for tc Server. SpringSource is offering tc Server for about US$500 per CPU per year for an enterprise-level subscription. Version 6.0.18 of Tomcat is featured with tc Server.

(SpringSource last month added capabilities for the Groovy scripting language by acquiring G2One.)

SpringSource is announcing tc Server at the SpringOne Americas 2008 conference in the US.