Professional Java® JDK®, 6th Edition

Chapter 11. Communicating between Java Components and Components of Other Platforms

Java is an ideal platform for server-side development. Many of the ongoing professional and open source Java development projects are for various server-side applications. Java EE (Enterprise Edition) dominates this Java server space, providing a strong open platform for many different types of server applications. One of the core principles and architectural themes in Java EE is the ability to segregate and distribute various components of the same software system to different machines. Remote communication between Java objects and components to other Java objects and components is at the heart of Java EE. Because Java EE is an open platform, it also defines how external objects and components in other applications (and other programming languages) communicate with Java EE components. In today's heterogeneous Internet-centric computing world, this cross-platform communication is absolutely essential.

Note

Component is an ambiguous term that can mean many different things to many different developers. In the context of this chapter, component refers to any software object or collection of objects that are network-aware, either sending information to other components or receiving it from the latter. For a high-level example, a web server could be considered a component. Web browsers and other client applications need to communicate with this component. More granular examples include Enterprise JavaBeans ...