JavaOne Trip Report and Technology Overview

Ron Mackenzie

April 2002

This presentation is on the Web at:

http://www.slac.stanford.edu/~ronm/JavaOne2002.html

• My personal observations: – Sun is much more open about release timing and

contents than DEC ever was.

– That is understandable given the open nature of Java.

– Sun cares about what developers think and wants them involved in the process of Java Platform definition.

– Sun is actively trying to get developers excited about the technology and asking them to develop applications.

– It's fun to have the focus on Software completely

JavaOne vs DECUS

Outline

• Technology overview– Lots of 3 and 4 letter acronymns– It’s all on the web off my home page ~ronm

• Conference Highlights

You’ll see many of the acronyms twice. Once in this Overview and again with more detail from Greg

Web Services

• Everything connects to everything via soap". • Not just for browser applications. B2B and

Machine to Machine applications too.

Web Services - Key Technologies

• Java Servlets

• JavaServerPages (JSP) and JSP standard tag library (JSTL)

• JavaXML Pack (JAX).  A set of API's providing: –  JAXM-messaging via soap

– JAXP-processing api

– JAXR-client side registry

– JAX-RPC-      RPC call ingerface including stub and skeleton generation

• WSDL (Web Services Definition Language). Tools generate WSDL(not very readable).  Like IDL, it defines interfaces across web application

Web Services Supporting Technologies

• Apache Tomcat, (Servlet and JSP container) • Ant (or some other build tool). • Registry server

SOAP and XML

• SOAP - Simple Object Access Protocol.  – Provides standard packaging structure for transporting XML

documents over HTTP, FTP, SMTP, etc

• XML - Extensible Markup Language.  – XML is an industry-standard, system independent way of

representing data.  Like HTML, it is a markup language that encloses data in tags.  The difference is that XML tags describe the content (HTML only tells you how to display it). Also, XML tags are extensible (you can write your own tags to describe the data content).  You can retrieve from data sources like Oracle efficiently with XML.

JSP’s and Servlets

• Java Server Pages (JSP) – Put the code into the web page.  It's like an HTML page with Java

in it.  Easier for most people to write than Servlets.

• Servlets – Put the html into the application code.

Both technologies allow you to run programs as a result of web requests. These programs can access databases and other systems for example.

They can do

-SOAP parsing, EJB and JMS execution …..

Sun Has Grouped  Java Technologies Into Three Editions:

1. Standard (J2SETM technology)2. Enterprise (J2EETM technology).

- Set of standards that provide a web application development and deployment platform. J2EE includes standards for middleware (EJB and JMS), database connectivitiy (JDBC), transactions (JTA/JTS), presentation (servlets and Java Server Pages) and directory services (JNDI).

3. Micro (J2METM technology) 1. Minimum sized JVM and set of API's that fit in consumer

devices.

Big Java / Little Java.  These were cute terms used by one speaker to describe J2EE/Web Services vs J2ME.

SunOne and JCA

• SunOne  Sun's Open Net Environment.  It's Sun's software strategy (and set of tools) for developing and deploying Web Services– Solaris– Forte Tools– Java– iPlanet Application Server – more...– www.sun.com/sunone

• JCA - Java Connector Archetecture. As with JNI (Java Native Interface), JCA is used to access Native or Legacy Applications

JCP

• JCP - Java Community Process (not JC Penney's).– The way the Java platform evolves

– Open organization of developers who develop and revise Java technology specifications and reference implementations.

– Created by Sun but has people from all over the map.

– Java Specification Requests (JSRs) are descriptions of proposed and final specifications for the Java Platform.

What is Microsoft .NET?

• The dark force?

• It is Microsoft's propriatary solution providing XML Web Services.See http://www.microsoft.com/net/

• Notice that the words "Web Services" are not used in Microsoft's description of .NET:

Microsoft® .NET is the Microsoft platform for XML Web services. XML, an industry standard data format, Is the "lingua franca" that enables data-sharing among disparate applications and devices.

Microsoft .NET (it’s not Servlets/JSPs)

• Notice the missing words "Servlet" and JSP in Microsoft's description of .NET servers:

The Microsoft .NET Enterprise Servers, Windows 2000 Server family, and the upcoming Windows .NET Server family,

with their built-in security, their support for XML and their ability to quickly scale-out to meet

increased demands, provide the best solution to host and deploy XML Web services and the .NET platform

Microsoft .NET (interoperability)

• Microsoft says .NET will interoperate with other Operating systems/languages. 

• This statement is from Sun:Sun ONE platform services and .NET services use common open standards such as those based on XML and SOAP. Therefore, the Sun ONE platform is able to use .NET Web services and is able to provide Web services to the .NET environment.

• BUT… .NET is a propriatary solution any you'll only be able to run on Microsoft based platforms.

.NET

• Java (the language and the platform) is not part of the .NET solution.  – So, your Java serverside code won't run on a .NET server.

• The .NET solution requires that you use Microsoft products for development and deployment of XML Web Services

• Microsoft:  .NET + Visual Studio .NET = $$ for Bill Gates

• OpenSource: tomcat +J2EE + linux which is free.

Leveraging Open-Source for complete J2EE application

• CVS - Same as we use.

• Jakarta ANT – XML based Java based build tool.

• Junit - Simple framework to write repeatable tests. http://www.junit.org/

• Jakarta Cactus -  Test framework for J2EE server-side java code

• Jakarta log4j - Distributed application logger.

• AspectJ - aspect-oriented extension to the Java

– "seperate program logic into different aspects". http://aspectj.org/

• Jakarta Struts –

– Use MVC framework to create Servelet, JSP, and JavaBean systems.

• Jakarta Tomcat -Servlet Container 

• JBoss - J2EE Application Server http://www.jboss.org/

• mySQL - Very popular open source database http://www.mysql.com/

Conference Highlights

• Web Services, XML, and SOAP were the hot topics.  • Wireless technology was a major thrust of the

conference which I largely skipped (where possible).• J2SE (standard edition) 1.4 (code name Merlin)  is

available.  It's solid.  Start using it. – Improvements in Security and Performance.  – Corba is provided.  – X-connections on sun and linux can be 10x faster.  – Complete X rewrite, sending less over the wire.  – Swing/J2D is 20-60% faster because it now accesses

platform specific graphics card features.

Java New IO (NIO)

• Java.nio (new IO API package) added to J2SE 1.4 – New API for doing I/O.  – Much faster than usual java.io package.– Scalable I/O– Fast Buffered binary and character I/O– I/O Multiplexed over multiple sockets (App Servers have done

this already).– No longer one thread per socket– Scatter IO support– Improved file system interface (almost as fast as native).– Async I/O not there

• http://www.jcp.org/jsr/detail/51.jsp

Other networking improvements

• Networking improvements in J2SE 1.4 besides NIO– IPV6 support.  Expanded routing and addressing (128 bit addresses format)

    Solaris 8 and 9 have dual stack capability (apps can support both).    WinXP does not have dual stack support, so no IPV6 Java support.    http://www.ipv6.org/

• Multicast, datagram, tcp, NIO:  all support with IPV6

– SetSockOpt and other operations supported before connection– URI:  java.net.uri. Uniform Resource Identifier (more flexable than URL class

for files, paths, url’s).    – java.net.NetworkInterface - for accessing network hardward (like ethernet

adaptors). Makes it easy to find the adaptors on your system and restrict I/O to one of them for example.

– Window size negotation support (for >64k buffers)– Partial out-of-band support– More... SOCKS support, Name Server improvements, JSSE (Server Socket

Extension).

The “Why” and “How” of Web Services

• Reduced development time is one of the big advantages of Web Services.  – Forte for Java (sun IDE) was demonstrated.  It does Web Services

Development and deployment.  Saw a demo where an EJB was used to accesses a legacy DB.  Then, they used the tool to publish it as a web service.  This all took 5 minutes.

• Basic XML Web services are being delivered now by Sun using iPlanet, Java, and Forte products.  – Lots more is coming.  This is a rapidly evolving technoligy.

• The Sun Web Services Development Pack was being given away.  – It contains the suite of Web Services technologies.

More of the “How” of Web Services

• For graphics, one speaker said that Browsers are low quality.  So, use J2SE's Swing/AWT/2D in non-browser applications instead.  – But, if you're deploying into a web environment, you

must use "Web Start" or a Java plug in.

• Sun encouraged people to – Use J2SE 1.4 - it's stable– Build Web Services with JAX-RPC– Build Rich Clients with Swing/AWT– Don't just target browsers.

Finally…

• Windows XP doesn't include JRE (that's what the latest law suit is about, right?).  – Of course you can download it, but that's a problem for casual

users.

• The solaris JVM supports 64 bit operations.  – This is great for large dataset transfers (>4GB).

• Message logging technologies:– Jakarta log4j - runtime message logging and application tracing. 

Configurable at run time.  Small performance cost.  Provides detailed descriptions of applicaiton failures.

– J2SE 1.4 has a NEW logging API built in.– System.out.println - the old standby.