email article printer friendly get the code more resources

Decide Between J2EE and .NET Web Services
J2EE and .NET both offer Web services support. How do you decide which platform to use, and why it's best?
by Eric Newcomer

For this solution: Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) compliant application servers, Visual Studio .NET, ASP.NET, Web services, Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), Web Services Description Language (WSDL), Universal Description, Discovery and Integration (UDDI)

The decade-old rivalry between Microsoft and Java development communities enters a new phase with the emergence of Web services. Each community is working hard to create the best support for Web services standards such as the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), Web Services Description Language (WSDL), and Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration (UDDI). As the companies fight for the hearts, minds, and pocketbooks of current and future developers, Microsoft and the Java vendors differ in the way they're embracing these new technologies. In this article I'll compare and contrast their approaches to Web services development and deployment, explain where they converge and where they diverge, and provide guidelines to help you decide which platform is best for you.

In particular, I'll help you identify the issues you should take into account when deciding whether to upgrade from Microsoft's previous generation technologies to .NET or move to a Java-based application server. This question arises because moving to .NET requires some recoding for previous generation applications.

Web services are fundamentally about interoperability—connecting programs and applications to other programs and applications—especially when those programs and applications are developed using different languages, tools, or platforms. Web services standards and technologies offer a widely adopted mechanism for making software work together. For the first time, Microsoft and the Java vendors have united in endorsing the core standards. However, the companies still disagree strongly over how to deliver the benefits of Web services to their customers.

In many ways, the differences between the .NET and Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) platforms are more significant than the differences in their approaches to Web Services. The fundamental platform philosophy remains: If you want to take better advantage of Windows features, stick with .NET; but if you want a cross-platform technology, consider using a J2EE-compliant application server from IBM, BEA, Sun, or IONA. The Java vendors portray Java as the only language you need for cross-platform development and deployment, while Microsoft provides multiple languages united in a common visual development environment.

Web services don't change the fact Microsoft and the Java vendors provide differing development and deployment environments; and the extent to which Web services are important to your business might influence which environment you choose.

For Web services to succeed in the marketplace, Microsoft and the Java vendors must agree to implement sufficient core capabilities, such as interoperability, service description formats, and service registry and discovery (SOAP, WSDL, and UDDI). However, as both groups fight to keep existing customers and gain new ones, the differences between the two platforms might become more and more important—especially if Web services really start to take off. To determine which platform to use, you should start by identifying the differences.