The following part of this white paper is discussed: compared with COM , Windows DNA, using EJB, J2EE can bring to business benefits.
1 industry support
Any commercial technology must have a good market situation, and a large number of participation in important companies in the industry is very important. J2EE is bored by Sun guidance, all vendors jointly initiated, and has been widely recognized industrial standards. In the industry 'company calculation' field, large companies such as IBM, BEA Systems, Oracle, etc. have participated.
In the J2EE specification development phase, the supplier will participate in the supplier to absorb their experience in the business calculations for many years, and can drive them quickly develop J2EE products. Because of the above strategies, it has now supported the J2EE specification now for more than 25 different server-side platforms.
J2EE also reflects the knowledge and expertise of many enterprises in the field of suppliers in many enterprises. This means that the product solution can meet any business needs. Since there are a lot of vendor support, the user's choice will be wider.
In contrast, the Windows DNA architecture is made separately and completed by Microsoft. If the customer is selected for this universal exclusive architecture that has been widely supported, they will limit them in a certain supplier's technical implementation. This will hinder customers in the future products, and these products are likely to best suggest a specific need for a certain business.
2 Protect existing IT investment
Since the company must adapt to new business needs, it is important to use the existing corporate information system investment, rather than re-establishing a total plan. Thus, a server-side platform mechanism established on an existing system in a progressive (rather than radical, all) is the company's needs.
The J2EE architecture makes full use of the original investment, such as the BEA Tuxedo, IBM CICS, IBM Encina, Inprise Visibroker, and Netscape Application Server used by some companies. This has become possible because J2EE has a wide range of industry support and some important 'enterprise calculation' domain suppliers' participation. Every vendor provides an existing customer's upgrade route for existing investments and enters the portable J2EE field. Since products based on J2EE platforms can almost operate on any operating system and hardware configuration, existing operating systems and hardware can be reserved.
J2EE can retain existing IT assets with the following three aspects:
Application can be utilized
Existing code can be reused in the J2EE scheme, and an application can re-divide the level without rewriting. This reduces the development time, accelerating the pace of entering the market, reducing development cost, keeping projects in a reasonable budget level. This also reduces the risk of enterprises, as companies can use proven and operative solutions, rather than withdrawing existing systems from new writing.
Existing products and license agreements can be utilized
If a company has purchased certain prior art license agreements or maintenance protocols, such as middleware, operating systems, or hardware license agreements, these licenses can still be used in the J2EE environment. Therefore, it is possible to reduce the cost of the project and shorten the training time.
Little dependence on suppliers
Because the suppliers who are being served is provided for the J2EE platform, there is only one supplier, you don't need to rely on two suppliers to establish a connection between their products. This reduces the complexity of the application and reduces the overall risk level.
In contrast, Microsoft's Windows DNA architecture requires customers to purchase and install Windows 2000, as well as customers who need customers to purchase new hardware. Customers have no opportunity to use the original supplier's license or maintenance agreement, increase the cost of project.
We should also see that Windows DNA does provide a connection to the user's existing system, but the customer uses this connection to rely on two vendors: Microsoft and now provide you with product suppliers. Solutions only use only one vendor are usually more easily managed than two suppliers' connection schemes, more reliable.
3 Protect future IT investments, adapt to changes Today, a company's IT department flexibility and adaptability is the source of competitive advantage in the market. The company should quickly improve procedures to respond to changes in market environment, and the company can get a leap in the competition faster than competitors in a shorter time. The IT department can plan deployment in market demand for business systems that can accommodate more user load or transaction needs.
J2EE enables a company to have stronger adaptation. Because each J2EE-based product guarantees the most basic J2EE service. Companies can only construct good coding, compliant with J2EE, and then make decisions according to the application environment when deploying. If the function, scalability or availability of the underlying platform is not enough to meet new market demand, users can have other options. If the customer's J2EE application is well design, and can comply with the standard, this system can be repaired by replacing the underlying middleware, operating system or hardware over time, but does not significantly fractive application. In this way, it is very attractive to the protection of future IT investment. The reaction time of market demand is reduced to the shortest, allowing the company to take action with the speed required by Internet.
Windows DNA does not provide adaptability to changes in the hierarchy of J2EE platforms. The customer will be tied to the Microsoft implementation of the middleware and the operating system. If this implementation is functional, scalability, usability is not easy, customers can only blame themselves not enough. If you have some modifications to the underlying operating system and middleware, it will significantly affect the application. The hardware that can be selected is also very limited. This will greatly delay the company to respond to changes in market environment.
4 Time to cut into the market
In today's market development business program, months are already very long concepts, and there is a small chance that is very small first to cut the market will mean that your company will take a few years to catch up.
A way to shorten the time to cut the market is to choose the server-side platform for the application to quickly develop. J2EE and Windows DNA are allowed to give some universal, cumbersome server tasks to middleware vendors. This developers can concentrate on how to create business logic, reduce development time accordingly.
However, advanced products based on J2EE platforms provide a wider range of middleware services than Windows DNA. This a bit is a bit from the advantage of the J2EE platform structure itself, and some is because J2EE can make the supplier to provide a variety of different characteristics while maintaining compatibility with the platform. The following complex middleware services are provided by advanced middleware vendors, but not in Windows DNA:
Status Management Service: You can let developers write less code, don't care how to manage status, this can complete the program development faster.
Sustained service: You can make developers to encode data access logic to write applications, which can generate more lightweight, unrelated to the database, which is easier to develop and maintain.
Distributed Shared Data Objects Cache Services: You can make developers to prepare high-performance systems, greatly improve overall deployment of scalability.
The company chooses the product based on the J2EE platform to implement the above services, compared to the selection of Windows DNA solutions to the market to achieve higher levels of scaling performance.
The J2EE platform quickly cuts into the market's feature is also beneficial to suppliers of E-commerce software, such as SAP, PeopleSoft, TriLogy, Oracle, Tradex, EC Cubed, Integral, I-MIND, and INTERSHOP. The supplier selects the J2EE platform to construct portable procedures deployed to any customer target platform, including Windows, UNIX, other existing systems, including any J2EE platform-based products. The supplier chooses the Microsoft platform to support a small number of users deployed on Windows. J2EE-based procedures are independent of a particular technique such as databases, operating systems, or hardware. This is required for a vendor with a wide range of heterogeneous environments. J2EE provides more underlying platform services than Windows DNA, which helps software vendors to develop faster programs and quickly market. 5 maturity
Since the release of MTS in December 1996, Windows DNA, COM server-side components have been continuously developed, while J2EE, EJB products have begun in 1998.
It seems that Windows DNA is a mature platform. However, in fact, it is now based on the high-end products of the J2EE platform contains some important transaction logic, and these transaction logic is used in the product for many years. Provide suppliers (such as IBM, BEA), which provide J2EE platform business, have a long history of approved the history of the release of middleware products. These middleware products can realize large transaction systems. These vendors are not constructed from zero to construct a server-side platform (which is the Microsoft's MTS.), Some suppliers have implemented a J2EE platform by developing a J2EE platform with portable layer based on the prior art that has been verified. . This includes CORBA products, transactional monitoring, databases, and / or application servers, and these technologies have been dedicated to companies. In some J2EE platform-based products, a large number of today's current business matters have been produced before Microsoft enters the server-side commercial area. J2EE products suppliers with early recognition technologies have:
IBM's WebSphere logically deacens IBM's MQSeries, CICS and ENCINA, and today most important real-time task systems are running on these products.
BEA's Weblogic This product has been put into the market since Microsoft launched MTS in 1996. WebLogic provides a connection to M3 and Tuxedo, allowing IT departments to use transactional monitoring technology, which has a strong reliability history.
Oracle's Oracle 8i supports the following technologies: database services, server-side components, and Web services on a single physical layer. Oracle 8i is based on Oracle's market-based database technology and online transaction processing technology.
Netscape's Netscape Application Server Based on KIVA Application Server Technology. In 1996, it has been used, and many large business websites are now driven by it.
Iona's Iportal Application Server is based on ORBIXWEB technology, orbixweb is a CORBA product, which has a long release history that provides a series of strong advanced middleware services.
Inprise's Inprise Application Server Based on Visibroker, this is a CORBA product that has been used in the industry for a long time and is deployed on some large companies.
Because IT sectors can use existing, over-test techniques, this is largely reduced risk factors.
6 scalability
Companies must choose a server-side platform that provides excellent scalability to meet a large number of new customers who have business operations on their system. Windows 2000 Datacenter Server is considered to be the most scalability of Microsoft in February 2000. It is said that each machine can support 16 processors. If OEM can reach 32 processors. Together with a plurality of Windows 2000 machine clusters, it can reach hundreds of processors in theory. To achieve such high levels of scalability, the server platform must have functions that transcend customers across multiple machines. Microsoft's component load balancing technology is to deliver customer requests on multiple COM components. Unfortunately, Microsoft recently announced that the component load balancing technology has been canceled from the release of 'Windows 2000' in February 2000 due to insufficient function. This means that the intermediate layer involving COM is limited to a machine, which in turn cannot provide the scalability required for large commercial websites.
However, applications based on J2EE platforms can be deployed to various operating systems. For example, it can be deployed to high-end UNIX and mainframe systems, which can support 64 to 256 processors. The suppliers in J2EE are more widely load balance strategies. Can eliminate bottlenecks in the system to allow multiple servers integrated deployment. This deployment can reach thousands of processors, achieving highly scalable systems to meet future business applications.
Through the exemplastic example, we can also see the risk of selecting proprietary technology such as Windows DNA. Customers have no room, only waiting for the vendor to complete the specified feature. However, choosing this open structure of J2EE, customers can choose the product, but also retain investments in existing application development. If the application design based on the J2EE platform is correct, customers can change the product vendor to meet certain scalability or functional needs with minimal transplantation.
7 Long-term availability
A server-side platform must be able to operate all day to meet the needs of company customers, partners. Because Internet is global, there is everywhere, even if it is downtown at night, it may cause serious loss. If it is unexpected, there will be catastrophic consequences. As Internet is increasingly becoming the main trading platform, this situation is more serious.
J2EE deploys to a reliable operating environment that they support long-term availability. Some J2EE deployed in a Windows environment, customers can also choose a robust performance, such as Sun'Solaris, IBM OS / 390. The most robust operating system can reach 99.999% availability or only 5 minutes a year. This is an ideal choice for real-time business systems.
The deployment of Microsoft technology cannot achieve such high levels of availability. Windows DNA is tied to the Windows operating system, and this operating system has been criticized due to non-high reliability. Microsoft he highly praised his WIN 2000 with a high degree of availability. But whether the level of these operating systems can still be observed. Although Microsoft's old customers should choose Windows 2000, the task is highly powerful, and the mainstream business site will take conservative posture.
8 overall cost
Buy a server-side platform, we must consider having the overall cost of this product. It includes: the price of the server platform, the cost, maintenance costs, maintenance costs, due to scalability, instability issues, due to the deployment time consumed due to scalability, instability issues, due to customers lost due to the defects of the platform. Lower overall costs are required to have bulk business, requires a strong commercial site.
Based on the J2EE platform's product price range, all types of companies can find products that meet their budget levels and services. The product has a completely free (such as Bullsoft's Jonas, which is open, $ 2500 per machine (Valto's EJIPT), per CPU35,000 US dollar (IBM's WebSphere Enterprise Edition). The initial price specified by Microsoft is: Windows 2000 Advanced Server applied US $ 1999 per machine (Due to an Internet connection of an Internet connection due to an Internet connection. Microsoft's price is in the middle and low declines based on J2EE product. Microsoft has not announced the Windows 2000 DataCenter Server, the Windows 2000 AppCenter Server price, so we can now make Microsoft's high-end platforms with most J2EE platforms. In the future, due to the presence of competition, each middleware supplier includes Microsoft to achieve similar price in accordance with the level of service provided.
Regardless of the results of price war, J2EE architecture will save more overall costs than Windows DNA. This is because the J2EE architecture is used, and the IT department can make more investment in applications, middleware technology, and operating systems. Based on the cost of J2EE development (initial, subsequent cost) will also be significantly reduced. This is because some tricky middleware tasks can be hidden when developing J2EE platform programs, and Windows DNA cannot be completed. When developing applications that meet J2EE specifications, programmers can spend more time focusing on business logic implementation and improve development efficiency.
More than 9 choices and limited to a supplier
Windows DNA and J2EE a big point is that Microsoft's solution is dedicated, excluding the possibility of competition (causing monopoly) and J2EE open standards, introducing competition (free market).
The advantage of competition is: the price is lowered; excellent products will appear; customers have options and flexibility rather than fixed in a supplier's solution; greatly reduce customer risk levels. The disadvantage of competition is that the development of open standards requires additional work to ensure compatibility. Some open standards such as SQL, CORBA have suffered from this guarantee in the past, and some dedicated products have emerged.
Sun Microsystems included a product called 'J2EE Compatibility Test Suite' in J2EE Publishing in J2EE Publishing. All middleware vendors must successfully pass this test to get J2EE certification marks. This ensures that the J2EE application code can only be developed once, then compiled and run in any J2EE platform-based product. Customers have a chance to choose to rely on a supplier.
In fact, Sun Microsystems have successfully applied test kits to ensure the compatibility of the J2SE (Java2 Platform Standard Edition). Now you can create Java2 platforms only once, and then you can deploy them on any compatible Java virtual machine. This method is also available on J2EE. The J2EE Compatibility Test Suite is the key to resolving an incompatible server-side platform. Readers should also note that due to fierce competition in J2EE, the supply business will provide convenience services that transcend J2EE standards. This is determined by the supplier to increase which characteristics is appropriate.
10 support heterogeneous environments
Some large companies have a heterogeneous server-side deployment environment, using a variety of operating systems, hardware, and middleware products. Heterogeneous environments may also occur in the following situations: To complete multiple different projects; consolidate companies with different deployment environments, acquire. In the above case, the transplantability and interoperability of the across partomable operating system are very important.
J2EE can develop portable procedures deployed in heterogeneous environments. J2EE-based applications do not rely on any particular operating system, middleware, hardware. Therefore, a reasonable J2EE-based program is designed to be deployed to a variety of platforms. This is critical in a typical heterogeneous company computing environment. The J2EE standard also allows customers to order off-the-shelf components compatible with J2EE, deploy them into the heterogeneous environment, saving the costs required by themselves. Windows DNA (including COM components) can only be applied to Windows 2000 and cannot be used on existing systems. This is uncomfortable to any company with a heterogeneous environment. In addition, select Windows DNA, the company wants to introduce new operating systems in the heterogeneous environment, making the entire system more complicated. The company's purchase of ready-made components can only be deployed on Win 2000, which limits its use.
In heterogeneous environments, interoperability or communication of different systems is very important. In two different J2EE systems, the same J2EE product can communicate with each other. Two different suppliers can also communicate, but due to lack of standard mechanisms, different suppliers of products, safety information cannot be interoperable. A standard protocol implements fully interoperability in the new version of J2EE specification, and does not affect existing program code. Microsoft does not want to follow this agreement, so its server-side products are still dedicated, unable to interoperate with other suppliers.
11 Maintainability
Typically, the company only evaluates the cost of a project throughout the deployment process. However, the overall cost should include a maintenance fee for a realized program. Using J2EE is easier to maintain than using applications developed with Windows DNA. Based on the J2EE platform product supports a wider range of component types and middleware services, developers can be put into energy in an urgent business problem in urgent to solve rather than middleware. Developers use the underlying platform to construct flexible and easy-to-maintain enterprise systems, such systems are not used to adapt to new middleware, database or database planning.
In contrast, the Windows DNA provides such a wide range of middleware features. In the construction system, more code is written, add the complexity of the program, and cannot clearly separate commercial logic with middleware functions. Moreover, the terminal program will be difficult to maintain, when the development group changes, the project is even worse.
Summary: In the 21st century, with the increasing intelligence of the main commercial trading platform, it is a focus of interesting business systems with scalability, flexibility and easy maintenance. J2EE just provides such a mechanism. Through the above contrast, the benefits of J2EE will be apparent, and over time, it will become a vitality.
This article is translated from (The Business Benefits of EJB AND J2EE TECHNOLOGIES over COM And Windows DNA)
