The Avalon project is Apache's Java Server Framework. It is separated into five sub projects: Framework, Excalibur, LogKit, Cornerstone, and Phoenix. Its purpose is to simplify server side programming for Java based projects. It formalizes serveral best of breed practices and patterns for server side programming.
For more information about Avalon, please go to http://jakarta.apache.org/avalon.
Avalon Excalibur provides several components and a couple containers that assist in developing component based software.
Avalon Excalibur is already used in Cocoon, an XML publishing framework. If you are evaluating Avalon and want the proof that it's claims are valid check them out.
For more information about Avalon Excalibur, please go to http://avalon.apache.org/excalibur.
Avalon Excalibur is in the process of making sure that all of the
uilities and code directly relate to Avalon. That means that
generic code is being moved out of Avalon's control. Excalibur
will be hit hardest by this restructuring. To make things easier
on our users, we are providing a compatibility JAR that has all the
projects that we will no longer be supporting. The classes or
packages that are deprecated signify the projects that already have a
replacement. If you would like to volunteer to maintain the
remaining code in the compatibility JAR, please contact the Avalon Developer's list.
The only exception to this rule is Excalibur Testlet, which has
been made part of Excalibur Component.