Scott Dietzen

Application servers are not new. Many information systems, from mainframe transaction processing environments like CICS to the stored procedures of a DBMS, provide for the server-side execution of business processes. Running business logic on a server can improve security, managability, performance and reusability. With the explosive growth of intranets and the Internet, developers need a rich, flexible server to host their business applications---a server that complements the content from databases and Web servers. As a platform, Java raises the bar for application servers. A Java application server marries the benefits of a robust, scalable application server with the expressive power and dynamism of the Java platform. Java's bytecode-based Virtual Machine allows objects, including both code and data, to be exchanged among heterogeneous systems. This means that r... (more)

What will determine whether one prevails...or ensure that they can co-exist?

Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) has not yet achieved critical mass as a Web application platform. Today, for example, over 10,000 customers are using BEA WebLogic, the J2EE application server market leader. However, it's a safe bet that J2EE will eventually reach critical mass. Microsoft's .NET is also a safe bet to get to critical mass. No other Web application infrastructure software platform has the traction of these two leaders, and while some developers may be drawing battle lines between J2EE and .NET, it seems to me that their peaceful coexistence will be the norm. Most so... (more)

Standards-Based Integration: The Impact of Web Services & J2EE

Standards can redefine a marketplace ­ consider the impact that SQL had on the relational database market. Standards can also create new markets ­ without HTML and HTTP, there would be no World Wide Web. My thesis here is that Web services and Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) will have a similarly dramatic impact on application integration ­ advancing the industry from point-to-point integration solutions developed after the fact (which I call integration "in the small") toward standard application containers that are integration-enabled a priori (integration "in the large"). B... (more)

Web 2.0: XML & Java - Standard Integration

Standards can drive revolutionary changes in technology: consider the impact that SQL has had on the database market, or consider that the World Wide Web was launched by the combination of HTML, HTTP, URL, and SSL. Our belief is that protocol standards (XML, Web services) and programming standards (Java and the .NET alternatives, XML Query, etc.) will have a similarly profound impact on integration. Integration encompasses a broad range of information technology (IT) needs (see Figure 1): --> Enterprise application integration (EAI): Directly interconnecting two or more business... (more)

.NET & J2EE

Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) has achieved critical mass as a platform for developing Web applications. Microsoft's .NET is also a strong contender in the Web world. Today both J2EE and .NET are evolving (via XML, Web services, etc.) from development-only platforms into development and integration platforms - a change that will transform enterprise application integration (EAI) and business-to-business integration (B2B) as we know them today. Despite the competitive uproar, coexistence of J2EE and .NET will be the norm - most sophisticated IT organizations will deploy on both d... (more)