Java business conference: Sun steps up Java's enterprise focus

By John Cox
Network World Fusion, 12/08/99

Sun this week unveiled it's latest steps in advancing Java as the software foundation for enterprise applications.

The critical step is the shipment to software vendors, starting Monday, Dec. 13, of the final Java 2 Enterprise Edition. J2EE outlines new APIs and services around a model, called Enterprise Java Beans (EJB), for building software components to run on servers.

The idea is to get vendors of development tools, application servers and operating systems to incorporate the new Java features into their products.

Those vendors that actually license J2EE from Sun get the following:

* The details of the core Java specification, plus 14 more optional feature packages that include EJB and Java Serve Pages.

* A "reference implementation" - which is Sun's coded version of these features, intended for study not deployment.

* A suite of over 6,000 compatibility tests, including new ones designed to test commercial Java programs, such as a vendor's application server software.

* A new addition called the J2EE Blueprint is a how-to guide for programmers to use in designing their own J2EE applications.

Sun currently has 54 Java partners, but only eight of these vendors are actual J2EE licensees. Once they run the tests, and pass them, these vendors can label their software as J2EE compatible.

A second step for Java is a reference implementation, built with Inprise, of J2 Standard Edition for Linux. Sun has reclaimed this project that was originally being done by an open source group called Blackdown.

Standard Edition is a version of the Java spec aimed at PCs and workgroup servers.

Under pressure from software partners, Sun reassigned the porting work to its own engineers. Inprise, maker of the Jbuilder tool set, will create a Just-in-time Java compiler for Linux and distribute the finished implementation with its tool set in the first quarter of 2000.

A "final preview" of the Linux version is available at http://developer.java.sun.com/developer/earlyAccess/j2sdk122/.

A third step is Sun's decision to release all parts of Java 2 Standard Edition for free (J2SE). Until now, developers had to pay some fees or royalties for some parts of J2SE.

The goal is to encourage wider use of j2EE for developers working on desktop and workgroup servers applications.

Starting January 31, besides the free binary code, developers will also get the J2SE source code for free. Developers can now change the Java source code, incorporate it into an application or commercial software product, without having to pay a penny to Sun.

Finally, Sun announced two measures to bolster its support for XML technology, which is an industry standard for describing data in a Web page. XML is seen as an important way to let different businesses and applications share data over the Web.

Sun released an initial version of the Java API for XML Parsing. This interface will let a Java program plug into any XML parser, so it can read, create and work with XML documents. Sun is shipping the API package with its own experimental parser, called Java Project X (JAXP). The final version of JAXP is due in early 2000.

Sun has also formed an expert group of 11 other companies to create XML Data Binding software for the Java 2 specification. This project will define relationships between XML documents and Java objects, as well as create a special compiler. The compiler automatically will create Java classes from XML schemas or data descriptions.

The project is part of Sun's Java Community Process for creating new Java specifications. The finished software will be ready by June 2000.