InformationWeek
Defining The Business Value Of Technology
November 1, 1999
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Java Servers Offer More
Test brings out the best application servers
By Richard Hoffman and Anthony Frey with Mike Lee
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ava applications aren't just for breakfast anymore--you need them all day, every day. Java on the server has earned credibility. The language is stabilizing, development tools are maturing, and solid, enterprise-class application servers have arrived. We tested five leading Java application servers in our Washington Real-World Labs. These products can ensure your server-side Java code and components are scalable and fault-tolerant, and provide critical system-level services, such as failover, load balancing, and performance monitoring. Further, many of these products help enable stable and scalable connections to back-end data sources, and most will let you deploy distributed data and business logic objects that can be accessed in a consistent way from almost any operating system and platform.We tested BEA Systems' WebLogic Server 4.0, InfoSpinner's ForeSite Application Server 3.0.2, Lutris Technologies' Enhydra Java/Extensible Markup Language Application Server 2.2, Secant Technologies' Secant Extreme Enterprise Server for Enterprise JavaBeans, and TSI Software's Novera 4.6. The Sun MicrosystemsıNetscape alliance was going to participate with the latest version of its Netscape Application Server, but declined at the last minute, stating that the vast majority of Netscape customers and their solutions are deployed on Solaris and other forms of Unix, not Windows NT, our test platform.
Most of the entrants are strong contenders. Capable, straightforward server management along with wide support for standards tells the final story, however, making our pick a tie between TSI's Novera and Secant's EES. Novera's excellent management capabilities were unmatched, and it has one-of-a-kind directory integration. The Secant server provides excellent delivery of enterprise services and strong management, and supports Enterprise JavaBeans and Java servlets. WebLogic has all the basics we were looking for, and a capable underlying architecture, but it's harder to configure and use.
ForeSite's and Enhydra's Java servlet environments have less to offer. Enhydra, however, shows potential as an open-source environment for servlets or for managing a Java presentation layer. Its home-brewed XML Compiler, an alternative to Java Server Pages for separating graphical and design elements from Java code for dynamic page generation, is powerful if a bit raw. ForeSite does a good job of encapsulating and integrating diverse data sources, but its documentation is opaque, its enterprise-level features are limited, and it doesn't handle Java servlets in a standard fashion. Neither product directly supports Enterprise JavaBeans. We can only recommend them if your final application simply requires a way to encapsulate existing data sources (ForeSite) or is heavy on presentation-layer elements (Enhydra), and doesn't need a fully managed distributed app.
Secant Extreme Enterprise Server
Secant's Corba and programming roots show in Extreme Enterprise Server for EJB, with its commitment to interoperability and open standards. The vendor has ensured that code generated by the product's bean-building tools will never be specifically bound to Secant's environment. As application servers become more of a commodity, Secant's approach could bear fruit; the vendor plans to compete on the basis of tools and metadata management, and sell Enterprise JavaBeans and other components built with its tools.
EES's management and deployment tools give it an edge over the other products, and its underlying architecture is even more robust than Novera's. The tools allow all aspects of the Enterprise JavaBeans servers, services, and clustering to be configured from the console (though servers can be managed from the command line as well). However, the Secant server doesn't quite match Novera's ease of management, primarily because of its lack of directory integration. A better deployment wizard would be nice, though EES allows a single point of change for multiple servers that support the same objects.
Installation was simple. We successfully configured the database connection pool, and it maintained data connections without a hitch. Our only difficulty came from using the 1.2 Java Virtual Machine; the included Inprise's VisiBroker 3.3 development tools support only 1.1.x Java Virtual Machines. Once Secant sent us an updated version of the VisiBroker support files, we were able to run our console application smoothly. Like WebLogic, EES supports only Oracle Call Interface drivers (Java Type 2). It also supports database connectivity out of the box to Microsoft SQL Server, IBM DB2, Informix, and Sybase databases.
EES doesn't yet completely support the Enterprise JavaBeans 1.1 specification, but it complies substantially and handles container-managed persistence for entity beans. The application server also provides tools to automate the presentation of database information as objects, on a comparable level with Novera. Secant also provides an API to register services from within Java applications, which allows services to be installed dynamically. This compares well with Novera's ability to deploy beans remotely, though Novera is easier to use.
EES substantially supports version 2.1 of the servlet spec and has some capacity for managing context. It can also do load balancing among multiple copies of the same servlet. But it does not yet handle session information for servlets when managing failover. If a servlet has session information and fails, that information is lost. Java Server Pages aren't supported, but that enhancement is in beta.
The next version of EES is expected to enable Java Remote Method Invocation over the Internet Inter-ORB Protocol. This is a simpler approach for some applications and will enhance compatibility with other Enterprise JavaBeans servers. The trade-off is the loss of some compatibility with pure Corba. But Secant says it is determined to support the Java 2 Enterprise Edition specification fully, and is committed to licensing the spec from Sun.
EES can integrate with Rational Software Corp.'s Rational Rose via an add-on, Extreme Link. With it, developers can model Enterprise JavaBeans and containers in Rational Rose and then automatically generate the complete set of EJB bindings, Corba Interface Definition Language, and other components. Secant's server is one of the best products we tested, and if the vendor's forward-looking perspective and excellent range of tech-support offerings had been included as formal test criteria, it might have edged out Novera.
Extreme Enterprise Server for Enterprise JavaBeans is $2,599 per developer deployment licenses on a per-CPU basis for an unrestricted number of users.
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