Prakash Narayan

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Today

I am often asked why there are several Java tools that are offered by Sun. There are questions on the purpose and target markets for these tools. The answer lies in the problem that you are trying to solve. I will focus here on the tools that we offer for Enterprise Java development.

Coming up soon is the Beta release of Sun Java Studio Enterprise 8.1, a follow on to the award-winning, much acclaimed Sun Java Studio Enterprise 8 IDE. Both support the Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition 1.4 (J2EE 1.4 platform). Sun Java Studio Enterprise 8 is based on NetBeans 4.1. The deployment platform is Sun Java System Application Server 8.1, which bundles the Pointbase database. Sun Java Studio Enterprise 8.1 is based on NetBeans 5.0. The deployment platform is Sun Java System Application Server 8.2, which bundles the Derby database.

For more details on the differences between the two Application Server platforms, see Chapter 2, About Application Server Platform Edition 8.2 in the Sun Java System Application Server Platform Edition 8.2 Release Notes.

Sun Java Studio Enterprise is paired with Sun Java Enterprise System. That is, the latter is the infrastructure software, to which you can develop and deploy applications with Sun Java Studio Enterprise.

The NetBeans Enterprise Pack 5.5 IDE, based on NetBeans 5.5, supports development to the Java Platform, Enterprise Edition 5 (Java EE 5). An Early Access version was released in May, with a Beta version in the offing.

The deployment platform for NetBeans Enterprise Pack 5.5 is Sun Java System Application Server Platform Edition 9.0. NetBeans Enterprise Pack 5.5 is paired with the Java EE 5 SDK. That is, while Java EE 5 SDK provides a robust Java EE 5 runtime environment, NetBeans Enterprise Pack 5.5 allows you to develop and deploy to this runtime.

For convenience, you can download the Java EE 5 Tools Bundle, which includes the SDK, NetBeans 5.5, and NetBeans Enterprise Pack 5.5.

Today, you can try out the new Java EE 5 standard with NetBeans Enterprise Pack 5.5 to develop applications and deploy them to the Java EE 5 SDK runtimes. Later on, those runtimes will be part of Sun Java Enterprise System, at which time a corresponding Sun Java Studio Enterprise IDE will also be available.

Comments:

My customer is embarking on a 1 year apps development, starting July 2006, using Java ES as their platform. Once development done, they would enter a 1-year test-and-parallel-run. So it will only go live in July 2008.

Their questions are:
1. Do they go with Java EE 5 or 1.4? I don't think JES will support Java EE 5 until probably H2 2007, which is too late. Going with J2EE 1.4 however, would mean they would go live with outdated architecture.
2. They would like to use NetBeans 5.5. Can they pay us for support?

Posted by Iwan 'e1' Rahabok on June 06, 2006 at 10:51 PM PDT #

Given their time frames, I would go with Java EE 5 and NetBeans Enterprise Pack 5.5. Note that the Java EE 5 SDK is available today. You are right in that the Java Enterprise System that supports Java EE 5 will not be available until late 2007. However, by developing their applications today and debugging them, they are in a position to deploy them on a production server when it becomes available. In a sense, this is exactly the model that we are encouraging folks to adopt.

In regards to support, the answer is yes. When NetBeans 5.5 is released, they can pay us for support. There are two plans available - Sun Developer Expert Assistance and Sun Software Service Plans. Today, while NetBeans 5.5 is in Beta, they can get support by posting to the NetBeans mailing lists .

Posted by Prakash Narayan on June 09, 2006 at 12:31 PM PDT #