Sun puts more Java into Web Services

By Alun Williams

Posted on 5 Feb 2003 at 12:54

Sun is to beef up the forthcoming 1.4 release of its J2EE specification (Java 2, Enterprise Edition) with extended support for Web Services.

The company has announced that it is working through the Java Community Process to make J2EE technology the standard for Java Web services 'development and interoperability'.

Specifically, in J2EE 1.4, Sun will support the 'Basic Profile' specification that has been proposed by the Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I). This is intended to help the components underlying Web services to work together. With the existing support of J2EE for other Web standards such as WSDL, SOAP, and UDDI, Sun claims the J2EE specification will 'enable developers to build more portable Web applications or services.

'By bringing Web services standards and interoperability together in the J2EE technology, we are evolving the Java Web services platform into the industry standard for developing and deploying interoperable Web services,' said Mark Bauhaus, VP of Java Web services at Sun. 'With support for WS-I basic profile, J2EE v 1.4 demonstrates Sun's commitment to open standards. Sun is fully engaged in collaborative work with industry organizations such as WS-I in order to help ensure Web Services interoperability becomes pervasive.'

SAP, Oracle, Macromedia and Borland are among those who have welcomed J2EE 1.4 in general and the incorporation of WS-I Profiles in particular.

Just to clarify the various Java releases: version 1.4.1 of the JDK is already available, but the enterprise-scale technology in the Java Enterprise Edition (already in beta) builds on this underlying base. System issues, such as load-balancing and critical fail-over, are among the areas covered by the wide-ranging J2EE specification.