An Overview and Comparison of Three Major Enterprise Application Development Platforms

This paper presents an overview and comparison of three major industrial-strength enterprise application development (and deployment) platforms. The platforms are Microsoft.Net, Java 2 Enterprise Edition, and WebObjects. The comparison includes discussion of the presentation tier, application tier, persistence tier, deployment, and tools. Although not a complete survey and somewhat subjective in its final recommendations, the paper should provide a general understanding of these three major platforms and how they compare. The choice of development platform is a significant one for developers and organisations (because they generally have a significant learning curve)and should not be made without a good understanding of the alternatives

Prozessorientiertes Facility Management in verteilten Umgebungen

The term Facility Management describes one part of business management with the goal of supporting the management activities through the delivery of infrastructure, technology and services. It covers the whole life cycle of a structural facility. An integration of facility management in the active processes of an enterprise or an enterprise group will be substantially supported by the introduction of an efficient, flexible and future-safe computer aided facility management system. But still no universal standards were established in this area. With high expenditure adapted single solutions are the rule, harm however the demand for a save investment independently of proprietary special solutions of individual manufacturers. An analysis of existing business standards shows that these solutions are suitable only partly for combining the existing isolated solutions in a virtual enterprise group in order to create a sustainable architectural approach for a process oriented facility management. In doing so the communication must not be reduced to pure data exchange, but only stable interface definitions and accurately specified document formats can lead to a continuous solution. In order to make these solutions for developers and end users in the phases of the design, the implementation and maintenance equally clear, a common vocabulary of concepts is necessary. The usage of the Unified Modeling Language gives thereby a promising basis. The concrete models with the contained types and their relations to each other are described over meta models. The usage of XML as means to data exchange between the individual components and for the description of the meta models guarantees a flexible and future-safe development basis. In the context of the work based on use cases the conception for a framework with core components for process oriented facility management in distributed environments is designed. The framework Simplix conceived by the author integrates meta models for the description of concrete data, workflow and access schemes. The designed modules are embedded into a component-based architecture, in order to obtain a greatest possible flexibility for the deployment in heterogeneous IT environments. The framework Simplix covers four core components. The SchemaService describes the concrete product models, the associated processes are represented by the WorkflowService. The realization of the access rules is realized by the SecurityService. The exchange of workflow messages with the encapsulated project data is done by the ExchangeService in XML. The presented design focuses on the integration of existing business and IT standards. The design of the four core components describes a possibility of standardization in the area of CAFM, which connects only the relevant data over processes detached from conventional export/import scenarios: <ul> <li>Reduction of the complexity of conventional product models by a standardization over meta models, the actual product and process models can be designed for end users and to their vocabulary of concepts adapted</li> <li>Support of the Ad-Hoc-manipulation of concrete product and process models, only thereby can be achieved an integration of different vocabulary of concepts</li> <li>The usage of standardized methods in the analysis and design phases makes a fast technical implementation of the individual services possible, especially during the integration of external software systems as always necessary in the CAFM sector</li> <li>Due to a clear interface specification external offers for individual services can be provided and used, the continuous use of XML makes an effective long-term data storage in a standardized, self-describing language possible</li></ul>Der Begriff Facility Management bezeichnet eine Facette des unternehmerischen Managements, die es zum Ziel hat, die unternehmerischen Aktivitäten durch die Bereitstellung von Infrastruktur, Technologien und Diensten zu unterstützen und umfaßt den gesamten Lebenszyklus einer baulichen Anlage. Eine Einbettung von Facility Management in die laufenden Prozesse eines Unternehmens oder eines Unternehmensverbundes wird durch die Einführung eines leistungsfähigen, flexiblen und zukunftssicheren Computer Aided Facility Management Systems wesentlich unterstützt. Allerdings haben sich auf diesem Gebiet noch keine durchgängigen Standards etabliert, mit hohem Aufwand angepaßte Einzellösungen sind die Regel, verletzen aber die Forderung nach Investitionssicherheit unabhängig von den proprietären Speziallösungen einzelner Hersteller. Eine Analyse vorhandener Geschäftsstandards zeigt, daß diese Ansätze nur teilweise dazu geeignet sind, die vorhandenen Insellösungen in einem virtuellen Unternehmensverbund miteinander zu kombinieren, um einen tragfähigen Architekturansatz für ein prozeßorientiertes Facility Management zu schaffen. Dabei darf die Kommunikation nicht auf den reinen Datenaustausch reduziert werden, sondern nur stabile Schnittstellendefinitionen und exakt spezifizierte Dokumentenformate können zu einer durchgehenden Lösung führen. Die konkreten Modelle mit den enthaltenen Typen und deren Beziehungen zueinander werden über Metamodelle beschrieben. Der Einsatz von XML als Mittel zum Datenaustausch zwischen den einzelnen Komponenten und zur Beschreibung der Metamodelle garantiert eine flexible und zukunftssichere Entwicklungsgrundlage. Im Rahmen der Arbeit wird auf der Basis von Anwendungsfällen die Konzeption für ein Framework mit Kernkomponenten zum prozeßorientierten Facility Management in verteilten Umgebungen entworfen. Das vom Autor konzipierte Framework Simplix integriert Metamodelle zur Beschreibung konkreter Daten-, Workflow- und Zugriffsschemata. Die dazu geplanten Module werden in eine komponentenbasierte Architektur eingebettet, um eine größtmögliche Flexibilität beim Einsatz in heterogenen IT-Umgebungen zu erzielen. Das Framework Simplix umfaßt vier Kernkomponenten. Der SchemaService beschreibt die konkreten Produktmodelle, die zugehörigen Prozesse werden über den WorkflowService abgebildet. Die Realisierung der Mechanismen zur Zugriffskontrolle werden vom SecurityService übernommen. Der Austausch von Workflow-Nachrichten mit den gekapselten Projektdaten erfolgt über den ExchangeService in XML. Der vorgestellte Ansatz setzt auf die Integration vorhandener Geschäfts- und IT-Standards. Der Entwurf der vier Kernkomponenten beschreibt eine Möglichkeit der Standardisierung im CAFM-Sektor, die losgelöst von herkömmlichen Export-/Import-Szenarios funktioniert und nur die relevanten Daten über Prozesse verknüpft: <ul> <li>Reduzierung der Komplexität herkömmlicher Produktmodelle durch eine Standardisierung über Metamodelle, die eigentlichen Produkt- und Prozeßmodelle können für die Endanwender entworfen und an deren Begriffswelt angepaßt werden</li> <li>Unterstützung der Ad-Hoc-Manipulation von konkreten Produkt- und Prozeßmodellen, nur dadurch kann eine Integration verschiedener Begriffswelten erreicht werden</li> <li>der Einsatz standardisierter Techniken im Entwurf und dem Design ermöglicht eine schnelle technische Umsetzung der einzelnen Dienste gerade bei der im CAFM immer notwendigen Einbindung von Fremdsoftware</li> <li>auf Grund einer klaren Schnittstellenspezifikation können externe Serviceangebote für einzelne Dienste erstellt und genutzt werden, der durchgehende Einsatz von XML ermöglicht eine effektive Langzeitdatenhaltung in einem standardisierten, selbstbeschreibenden Format</li></ul&gt

Service Based Marketplace for Applications

The Grid has revolutionized the way computations are done on the Internet. Access to remote computational resources and ad hoc creation of virtual organizations across administrative domains opens new opportunities on the Grid. The newly developed web services based Open Grid Services Architecture makes the Grid more accessible by allowing the Grid to be constructed from distinct platform independent components. Together they provide an environment for application sharing (or trading), collaborations and access to remote data repositories. The application marketplace is a natural extension to this application sharing environment. The marketplace addresses the fact that the existing infrastructure is still incomplete without provisions for publishing and discovering applications and resources, including the application descriptors that must be moved between the market participants. This work demonstrates a web service instance-based infrastructure, the application market that allows the sellers, the application and the CPU providers to publish their applications for the users to find and use. The application market uses a portal architecture built on top of Globus toolkit 3.0 that interacts with the providers and the users. The market services provide distinct interfaces that allow providers to advertise applications and users to select, configure, and run these applications. The applications themselves are modeled as stateful objects represented using XML which can be exchanged between the providers and users when required. The marketplace, through its interfaces, effectively hides the compute resource and application complexity thus allowing end users to explore and use applications unfamiliar to them with ease

J2EE vs. Microsoft Dot Net: A Qualitative and Quantitative Comparison for Building Enterprises Supporting XML-based Web Services

Increasing speed of networks and worldwide availability has made the World Wide Web the most significant medium for information exchange. Web technologies have become more and more important as large and small businesses continue to make their presence on the web. Today\u27s businesses have more than just a face on the worldwide web. The use of a web browser is no longer restricted to viewing static pages. Browsers are becoming more and more a standard interface to a multifaceted reign of programs that live on the worldwide web. Two main technologies stand out for the implementation of web applications, Sun Microsystems\u27 Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) and Microsoft\u27 Dot Net Framework. The purpose of this study is to provide an unbiased comparison of the two technologies based on performance and other software qualities