<<A key goal of Java EE 5 was to simplify the programming model, especially for Web services. Although the previous version, J2EE 1.4, supported SOAP- and WSDL-based Web services, many found the model too complex. Nick Kassem, technology director for Web services at Sun Microsystems Inc. said the improvements to Java EE 5 better enable the loose coupling of services, while providing the robust technology that will be required to scale up Web services and build out an SOA.
"It will be hard for many of our customers to get to SOA without going through the Java EE 5 stepping stone," Kassem said. "It's a key building block. The reality is SOA means a lot of things to a lot of people and it has many aspects. The back-end integration part requires the sophisticated technology EE 5 offers today." Java EE 5 includes several key specifications intended to improve and simplify Web services support. These are: Java API for XML-Based Web Services (JAX-WS) 2.0, Java Architecture for XML Binding (JAXB) 2.0, Web Services Metadata for the Java Platform 2.0 and SOAP with Attachments API for Java (SAAJ) 1.3. In particular, JAX-WS 2.0 supports annotations, simplifying the programming model. It is integrated with JAXB 2.0, so all data binding has been delegated to JAXB 2.0. JAX-WS 2.0 has the ability to support additional protocols, transports and encodings. It also supports SOAP 1.1, SOAP 1.2, and XML/HTTP protocols as well as REST-style applications. In addition, advanced applications can use the low-level, messaging-based JAX-WS 2.0 API to process messages directly, without having to duplicate any of the protocol- and transport-level support built into the runtime, according to Sun. "The core tenet of SOA is loose coupling within Web services and without," Kassem said. "In Web services, our [J2EE 1.4] initial foray was very RPC-centric. That dramatically shifted with JAX-WS 2.0, it was an important programming model shift. It enables us to build more loosely coupled Web services that will scale very well for the Web. [It] was a significant SOA-centric initiative. Simultaneously, we [made] significant improvements in the JAXB 2.0 spec to enable better quality data bindings. The quality of bindings is really important. If you don't get the bindings right, you have round-tripping problems in the SOA world that you never get right. We're not completely there, but it's a big improvement." Jeet Kaul, Sun's executive director of application platforms, added, "The amount of code from J2EE 1.4 to Jave EE 5 was dramatically reduced. And with the use of annotations, a person who understands Java programming can do Web services programming. The simplification of the programming model has had a huge reception from developers. That in combination with the other [improvements] makes it a better place for service development.">> You can read this article in full at: <http://searchwebservices.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid26_gci1233278,00.html?track=NL-110&ad=573533HOUSE&asrc=EM_NLN_806374&uid=5532089> Gervas
