The Java programming language and platform have emerged as major technologies for performing e-business functions. Java programming standards have enabled portability of applications and the reuse of application components across computing platforms. Sun Microsystems' Java Community Process continues to be a strong base for the growth of the Java infrastructure and language standards. This growth of open standards creates new opportunities for designers and developers of applications and services .
Applications of Java
Java uses many familiar programming concepts and constructs and allows portability by providing a common interface through an external Java Virtual Machine (JVM). A virtual machine is a self-contained operating environment, created by a software layer that behaves as if it were a separate computer. Benefits of creating virtual machines include better exploitation of powerful computing resources and isolation of applications to prevent cross-corruption and improve security.
The JVM allows computing devices with limited processors or memory to handle more advanced applications by calling up software instructions inside the JVM to perform most of the work. This also reduces the size and complexity of Java applications because many of the core functions and processing instructions were built into the JVM. As a result, software developers no longer need to re-create the same application for every operating system. Java also provides security by instructing the application to interact with the virtual machine, which served as a barrier between applications and the core system, effectively protecting systems from malicious code.
Among other things, Java is tailor-made for the growing Internet because it makes it easy to develop new, dynamic applications that could make the most of the Internet's power and capabilities. Java is now an open standard, meaning that no single entity controls its development and the tools for writing programs in the language are available to everyone. The power of open standards like Java is the ability to break down barriers and speed up progress.
Today, you can find Java technology in networks and devices that range from the Internet and scientific supercomputers to laptops and cell phones, from Wall Street market simulators to home game players and credit cards. There are over 3 million Java developers and now there are several versions of the code. Most large corporations have in-house Java developers. In addition, the majority of key software vendors use Java in their commercial applications (Lazaridis, 2003).
Applications
Java on the World Wide Web
Java has found a place on some of the most popular websites in the world and the uses of Java continues to grow. Java applications not only provide unique user interfaces, they also help to power the backend of websites. Everybody is probably familiar with eBay and Amazon have been Java pioneers on the World Wide Web.
eBay
Founded in 1995, eBay enables e-commerce on a local, national and international basis with an array of Web sites.You can find it on eBay, even if you didn't know it existed. On a typical day, more than 100 million items are listed on eBay in tens of thousands of categories. on eBay; the world's largest online marketplace.
eBay uses Java almost everywhere. To address some security issues, eBay chose Sun Microsystems' Java System Identity Manager as the platform for revamping its identity management system. The task at hand was to provide identity management for more than 12,000 eBay employees and contractors.
Now more than a thousand eBay software developers work daily with Java applications. Java's inherent portability allows eBay to move to new hardware to take advantage of new technology, packaging, or pricing, without having to rewrite Java code.
Amazon
Amazon.com has created a Web Service application that enables users to browse their product catalog and place orders. Amazon.com uses a Java application that searches the Amazon catalog for books whose subject matches a user-selected topic. The application displays ten books that match the chosen topic, and shows the author name, book title, list price, Amazon discount price, and the cover icon. The user may optionally view one review per displayed title and make a buying decision.
Java in Data Warehousing & Mining
Although many companies currently benefit from data warehousing to support corporate decision making, new business intelligence approaches continue to emerge that can be powered by Java technology. Applications such as data warehousing, data mining, Enterprise Information Portals and Knowledge Management Systems are able to provide insight into customer retention, purchasing patterns, and even future buying behavior.
These applications can not only tell what has happened but why and what may happen given certain business conditions; As a result of this information growth, people at all levels inside the enterprise, as well as suppliers, customers, and others in the value chain, are clamoring for subsets of the vast stores of information to help them make business decisions. While collecting and storing vast amounts of data is one thing, utilizing and deploying that data throughout the organization is another.
The technical challenges inherent in integrating disparate data formats, platforms, and applications are significant. However, emerging standards such as the Application Programming Interfaces that comprise the Java platform, as well as Extendable Markup Language technologies can facilitate the interchange of data and the development of next generation data warehousing and business intelligence applications. While Java technology has been used extensively for client side access and to presentation layer challenges, it is rapidly emerging as a significant tool for developing scaleable server side programs. The Java2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) provides the object, transaction, and security support for building such systems.
Metadata Issues
One of the key issues that business intelligence developers must solve is that of incompatible metadata formats. Metadata can be defined as information about data or simply "data about data." In practice, metadata is what most tools, databases, applications, and other information processes use to define, relate, and manipulate data objects within their own environments. It defines the structure and meaning of data objects managed by an application so that the application knows how to process requests or jobs involving those data objects. Developers can use this schema to create views for users. Also, users can browse the schema to better understand the structure and function of the database tables before launching a query.
To address the metadata issue, a group of companies have joined to develop the Java Metadata Interface (JMI) API. The JMI API permits the access and manipulation of metadata in Java with standard metadata services. JMI is based on the Meta Object Facility (MOF) specification from the Object Management Group (OMG). The MOF provides a model and a set of interfaces for the creation, storage, access, Metamodel and metadata interchange is done via XML and uses the XML Metadata Interchange (XMI) specification, also from the OMG. JMI leverages Java technology to create an end-to-end data warehousing and business intelligence solutions framework.
Enterprise JavaBeans
A key tool provided by J2EE is Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB), an architecture for the development of component-based distributed business applications. Applications written using the EJB architecture are scalable, transactional, secure, and multi-user aware. These applications may be written once and then deployed on any server platform that supports J2EE. The EJB architecture makes it easy for developers to write components, since they do not need to understand or deal with complex, system-level details such as thread management, resource pooling, and transaction and security management. This allows for role-based development where component assemblers, platform providers and application assemblers can focus on their area of responsibility further simplifying application development.
Data Storage & Access
Data stored in existing applications can be accessed with specialized connectors. Integration and interoperability of these data sources is further enabled by the metadata repository that contains metamodels of the data contained in the sources, which then can be accessed and interchanged uniformly via the JMI API. These metamodels capture the essential structure and semantics of business components, allowing them to be accessed and queried via the JMI API or to be interchanged via XML. Through all of these processes, the J2EE infrastructure ensures the security and integrity of the data through transaction management and propagation and the underlying security architecture.
To consolidate historical information for analysis of sales and marketing trends, a data warehouse is often the best solution. In this example, data can be extracted from the operational systems with a variety of Extract, Transform and Load tools (ETL). The metamodels allow EJBs designed for filtering, transformation, and consolidation of data to operate uniformly on data from diverse data sources as the bean is able to query the metamodel to identify and extract the pertinent fields. Queries and reports can be run against the data warehouse that contains information from numerous sources in a consistent, enterprise-wide fashion through the use of the JMI API.
Java in Industrial Settings
Many people know Java only as a tool on the World Wide Web that enables sites to perform some of their fancier functions such as interactivity and animation. However, the actual uses for Java are much more widespread. Since Java is an object-oriented language, the time needed for application development is minimal.
In addition, Java's automatic memory management and lack of pointers remove some leading causes of programming errors. Most importantly, application developers do not need to create different versions of the software for different platforms. The advantages available through Java have even found their way into hardware. The emerging new Java devices are streamlined systems that exploit network servers for much of their processing power, storage, content, and administration.
Benefits of Java
The benefits of Java translate across many industries, and some are specific to the control and automation environment. Java's ability to run on any platform enables the organization to make use of the existing equipment while enhancing the application.
Integration
With few exceptions, applications running on the factory floor were never intended to exchange information with systems in the executive office, but managers have recently discovered the need for that type of information. Before Java, that often meant bringing together data from systems written on different platforms in different languages at different times. Integration was usually done on a piecemeal basis, once it worked, was unique to the two applications it was tying together. Additional integration required developing a brand new system from scratch, raising the cost of integration.
Scalability
Another benefit of Java in the industrial environment is its scalability. Even when internal compatibility is not an issue, companies often face difficulties when suppliers with whom they share information have incompatible systems. This becomes more of a problem as supply-chain management takes on a more critical role which requires manufacturers to interact more with offshore suppliers and clients. The greatest efficiency comes when all systems can communicate with each other and share information seamlessly. Since Java is so ubiquitous, it often solves these problems.
Dynamic Web Page Development
Java has been used by both large and small organizations for a wide variety of applications beyond consumer oriented websites. Sandia, a multiprogram laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration, has developed a unique Java application. The lab was tasked with developing an enterprise-wide inventory tracking and equipment maintenance system that provides dynamic Web pages.
Conclusion
Open standards have driven the e-business revolution. As e-business continues to develop, various computing technologies help to drive its evolution. The Java programming language and platform have emerged as major technologies for performing e-business functions. the time needed for application development is minimal. Java also encourages good software engineering practices with clear separation of interfaces and implementations as well as easy exception handling. Java's automatic memory management and lack of pointers remove some leading causes of programming errors. The advantages available through Java have also found their way into hardware. The emerging new Java devices are streamlined systems that exploit network servers for much of their processing power, storage, content, and administration.