IBM and Covalent Technologies Thursday announced that they have each contributed technology to the open-source Apache Geronimo community to help users migrate from the JBoss application server to IBM's Apache-based application server.

IBM announced its plans to enter the open-source application server arena in May 2005 when it acquired Gluecode Software. IBM's open-source WebSphere Application Community Edition -- based on Apache Geronimo -- was built from technology acquired with Gluecode.

The new migration tool, which is made up of plug-ins for the Eclipse integrated development environment, can convert applications built for JBoss to Apache-based systems such as those of IBM by generating appropriate configuration files, said Paul Buck, director of IBM WebSphere open source.

"In the past, if companies wanted to migrate [to Apache Geronimo], it was a [manual] effort to go in and change the application descriptors ... and make any special code changes where there are differences or nuances between the two app servers," he said. "The tool will also go through the J2EE application itself and look for any required changes at the source that we know are different between the two app servers."