Java on server is tasting good

While many corporate IT shops have moved beyond merely tasting Java, developers seem to find it most palatable as a middle-tier and back-end environment, showing a limited thirst for Java on the client.

As Sun’s Java Software Division rolls out the latest beta version of the Java Development Kit (JDK) 1.2, which promises much-awaited performance and quality improvements for client-side Java, enterprise developers are still loath to commit to deploying Java front-end applications.

Performance, testing, security, and consistency are among the issues still cited for avoiding Java. Java Software officials counter that a thin-client design approach, coupled with technologies such as the Java Activator VM distribution plug-in, now make client-side Java a viable option.

Java Software last week issued Beta 4 of the JDK 1.2, which it termed “feature-complete.” The upgrade, slated for final release later this summer, includes Symantec’s JIT Compiler 3.0, the underpinnings of the company’s HotSpot virtual machine, Java Foundation Classes, the Java 2D API, extended security, and CORBA support.

According to John Rymer, an analyst at Upstream Communications, a consultancy in Emeryville, CA, it could be at least six months before tools vendors and Java virtual machine (JVM) licensees support the latest feature set.

Because of this lag in JVM adoption — and also because some security-conscious companies block Java applets in their firewalls — many users are relying on straight HTML rather than Java for client presentation.

But Java’s productivity as a language and its hooks to multiple back-end platforms make it a natural for middle-tier application servers, users report.

Brad Albers, director of IS at The Home Depot in Atlanta, GA, said Java’s importance to his company lies in its ability to tap into mixed mainframe and Unix back-end systems. Java lets some 100 Java-trained developers use one language to write an application layer on top of what the retailer already has. That is much more efficient than ripping out existing systems or working in multiple languages.

“It’s relatively easy to extend our CORBA framework to MVS,” Albers said, adding that using Java “is not a systems decision; it’s a business decision.”

“A lot of what’s driving Java on the server is integration. Java servers being dynamic, they can load classes on the fly, which means they can change behavior based on requests,” Rymer said. “This is very good when trying to integrate several databases based on a request.”

Still, some Sun customers at a Java pep rally in New York last week said they are building Java front ends for narrow applications. Scotiabank in Toronto, Canada, for instance, is writing a mutual fund order-entry system in Java and is piloting JavaStations for use in mutual fund company offices throughout Canada, according to Gail Smith, senior vice president of IS at the bank.

“Java on the client is the way to go, if you can do it. But there’s always a price to pay,” said Jonathan Clay, chief technical officer at Nevo Technologies, a development company based in Cambridge, MA. “There’s the overhead of downloading code, and Java is still somewhat lacking in unification across platforms,” said Clay.

Java’s nagging portability problems are still a concern in the back-end arena, even though developers are typically concerned with performance on servers.

Deployment across all tiers should be simplified in the next six to nine months with end-to-end distributed application testing tools from a variety of vendors, according to Lew Tucker, director of developer relations at Java Software.

Joseph Larizza, senior manager at Ernst & Young’s Advanced Development Center in New York City offered that using server-side Java to access legacy databases is where Ernst & Young clients, such as the Standard & Poor’s Rating Service, are seeing the most value. For instance, using Java and the CORBA component model gives Standard & Poor’s multiple choices for server hardware and Web server software.

“Because the application itself is standard, they’re not worried about moving to other platforms,” Larizza said, adding that it’s an important consideration in today’s fast-changing IT markets.