Friday, January 17, 2003
The platform choice
MSI
Monday, January 13, 2003
As manufacturers look for the best way of using information technology (IT) to support their future business strategies, they should keep two facts in mind.��
First, the future of business computing will center on Internet-based applications. Second, almost all of those applications will be built on one of two software development platforms.��
These two platforms are Java 2 Enterprise Edition--commonly referred to as J2EE--which was introduced roughly three years ago by Sun Microsystems , Santa Clara, Calif.; and Microsoft .NET--pronounced dot Net--which was unveiled by Microsoft Corp. , Redmond, Wash., in 2002.��
Proponents of both platforms contend that they offer everything a company needs to build an IT infrastructure for doing business in the 21st century. Surprisingly, they're both right, although each platform has characteristics that make it more suitable for particular types of businesses.��
"We don't see one platform winning over the other; there will continue to be two camps," says Colleen Niven, vice president of technology research for the Boston-based consulting firm, AMR Research . In general, Niven says, large companies are gravitating toward J2EE while small and medium-size enterprises tend to favor .NET.��
From a functional standpoint, the two platforms are comparable, which is not surprising since they were developed for similar reasons. While these platforms can be used to build an IT infrastructure for any type of business, both Sun and Microsoft have organizations dedicated to helping manufacturers understand how these platforms can meet their particular needs.��
The future of manufacturing��
"If you look at our vision of the future of manufacturing, it includes an IT environment that integrates all aspects of the business," says Bill Gerould, Sun's director of manufacturing. "This environment links the customer side with the supplier side and the employee side, as well with product development, the factory floor, and all of the enterprise business applications.��
"Today, most of those departments operate in silos," Gerould continues. "So if I'm in product development, I buy whatever applications I need to do my individual job, and I don't worry much about what goes on outside of my silo."��
Gerould says Sun's attempt to help manufacturers change this dynamic revolves around an IT architecture called Sun Open Net Environment, or Sun ONE, of which J2EE is the major building block. "The architecture that we see with Sun ONE, as well as with .NET, will move all of an organization's applications to a Web-based infrastructure," Gerould says. "That means even if applications are built to address the needs of specific departments, they can be linked to this Internet backbone, which should make it easier for a company to integrate those applications as they see fit."��
Don Richardson, Microsoft's director of manufacturing industry solutions, says .NET was devised in response to "the struggles we were having with integrating disparate applications. At the time, integration only truly worked when the applications you wanted to integrate ran on the same [operating system], and they almost had to be on the same type of hardware."��
The underlying programming languages are the pieces of both the .NET and J2EE environments that do the most to facilitate smooth system integration. J2EE employs the Java programming language, which Sun introduced several years before it developed the other components of the J2EE framework. When Microsoft developed the .NET framework, it also created a new language called C# (pronounced C sharp), which some programmers contend is a modified version of Java.��
Boosts productivity��
Both of these are object-oriented languages, which means that the logic inside of an application is bundled into small packets, called objects, that can be easily reused to create new applications, or to add functionality and features to existing applications. Programmers say this drastically reduces the time it takes to develop applications, and that is a major reason why the majority of packaged application vendors are abandoning previous generations of software development tools in favor of J2EE or .NET.��
"Because Java is such a productive environment for the programmer, we can develop and deliver our applications much more quickly," says Debbie Schneider, senior product manager with PTC , Needham, Mass., a supplier of CAD and product life-cycle management (PLM) software. "Our customers benefit from our ability to add so many features and functionality to our products."��
In addition to these object-oriented programming languages, the J2EE and .NET frameworks contain a number of features that make it easier for organizations to conduct e-Business. These features, which often are referred to as services, include such things as Web commerce engines and programs that handle security functions such as verifying the identity of users on Internet-based networks.��
Most of the advertising for both J2EE and .NET refers to them as platforms for creating Web services, which have been hailed in many quarters as the next great advance in enterprise computing. Web services essentially are software components that have been outfitted with specific communications protocols that allow them to pass information from one application to another over the Internet, without the need for a direct connection between those two applications, and without regard for which operating systems the applications run on.��
It's unlikely that users of packaged applications will ever need to know anything about Web services protocols. That's because these protocols are embedded in both the J2EE and .NET environments, which makes it easier for application developers to convert pieces of their programs to Web services.��
No more plumbing��
David Willet, chief technologist for Frontstep , an enterprise resources planning (ERP) software supplier based in Columbus, Ohio, says having the .NET framework handle all of this "internal plumbing" leaves application developers free to add more useful features to a software package. Frontstep, which is set to be acquired by Atlanta-based ERP vendor MAPICS early in 2003, built SyteLine 7, the most recent version of its ERP package, on the .NET framework.��
"Before .NET, we spent a lot of time building documents that could travel through firewalls, which required the use of several [Web services protocols]," Willet says. "With .NET, we simply create the documents that we want to pass from one system to the next, and they are automatically delivered in the appropriate manner. This frees us up to be a company that creates business processes that our customers can use, rather than having to constantly master and manage new technology."��
Perhaps the most obvious sign that J2EE and .NET will be the development platforms of the future came roughly 18 months ago, when Walldorf, Germany-based SAP, the world's leading ERP software supplier, announced that it would begin building its applications on the J2EE framework. "The emergence of e-Business, which created the need for an open infrastructure, led to our adoption of J2EE," says Peter Kuerpick, SAP's senior vice president of server technology development. "That puts our applications on a platform in which there is common knowledge in the marketplace. That was appealing to our customers. It means they can work in a more familiar environment if they need to modify an application."��
Learning from history��
An application developer's choice of J2EE or .NET typically has more to do with the developer's history than with its future vision. "J2EE tends to be used more by companies that are moving from client/server applications that ran on the UNIX operating system," AMR's Nivens says. "That's why you see the larger enterprise system vendors like SAP, Oracle , [Redwood Shores, Calif.,] and PeopleSoft [Pleasanton, Calif.] adopting J2EE."��
On the other hand, companies whose previous applications ran on some version of Microsoft's Windows operating system, such as Frontstep, and SYSPRO , Costa Mesa, Calif., are more likely to use .NET. The vendors say there are practical reasons for these choices.��
"We considered both options before deciding on J2EE, because it gives our customers more choices," says Jack Young, an executive vice president with MRO Software , an enterprise asset management software supplier based in Bedford, Mass. "It allows our applications to run on the various UNIX platforms, as well as on Linux and Windows."��
The Java programming language allows J2EE-based applications to run on multiple platforms, but not everyone considers that a virtue. "J2EE has the same problems as the classic UNIX market," says Mike Carnahan, an executive vice president with ROI Systems , a mid-market-focused ERP supplier based in Minneapolis. "There are 16 varieties of it. For years we watched the UNIX wars that allowed Windows to come from nowhere to become the fastest-growing operating system. I think the same thing will happen with J2EE and .NET."��
The J2EE landscape does mirror the UNIX space in many ways. After Sun created J2EE, it released the specifications to the general public, leaving anyone free to develop applications and tools that comply with those specifications. The problems with this approach become most apparent when a company wants to use the J2EE platform as an e-Business backbone. That requires the use of a Web application server, which is a piece of middleware that stores and executes the business logic for Web-based applications. A number of vendors have developed J2EE Web applications servers, and each one has slightly different characteristics.��
Competing Web servers��
The two most popular J2EE Web application servers are WebSphere from IBM Armonk, N.Y; and WebLogic from BEA Systems , San Jose, Calif. Some application developers--including SAP, Oracle, and PTC--also have their own Web application servers.��
Brad Brown is chief architect with The Ultimate Software Consultants , a Lombard, Ill.-based IT services firm that specializes in Oracle consulting. He says Oracle's application server is nearly identical to WebSphere and WebLogic, but he also points out that there are other Web servers on the market, including some open source products, that don't adhere strictly to J2EE standards. "There are differences in the way you write applications for these various Web application servers," he says.��
Brown also concedes that with .NET, "Microsoft has done a nice job of bundling a lot of products together and making it easier to develop applications." The .NET bundle includes the C# programming language, an application development environment called Visual Studio.NET, and a Web application server. With J2EE, users have to assemble all of these pieces on their own.��
The experts advise users to consider their own history when deciding whether to purchase applications based on J2EE or .NET. Many companies are likely to end up with both platforms, even if they choose one as a corporate standard. "The good news is the two environments can co-exist," Nivens says. "There are ways of connecting them, including through Web services."��
While .NET applications tend to have lower cost of ownership because they come in a fully integrated package from a single vendor, the real issue is not J2EE versus .NET. "It's really a question of what your current IT infrastructure looks like, and what skills you have in your organization," says Nivens.��
"The Microsoft shops--those that have Visual Basic developers and experience with NT and SQLServer--will fare best with .NET-based applications," Nivens concludes. "If you're a UNIX house with a bunch of C programmers, you should probably look to the J2EE environment."��
For those reasons alone, these two platforms are bound to co-exist well into the future.��
A multiplatform universe Sidney Hill, Jr. Some application vendors embrace J2EE, .NET , and other platforms��
Industry analysts predict that many companies will deploy both J2EE and .NET in the same enterprise. But it also seems clear that these two platforms of the future will have to accommodate the numerous legacy systems that companies want to keep as part of their infrastructures.��
The realities of business make this type of co-existence necessary, and the concepts on which J2EE and .NET are based--specifically the idea of code reuse--make it possible. Both platforms allow for converting nearly any software code into a program object that can be linked with other objects to support a particular business process.��
This capability is critical to the recent announcement by Epicor Software, Irvine, Calif., that it will create a .NET version of its manufacturing software package that uses business logic created on the OpenEdge platform from Progress Software, Bedford, Mass.��
"This is a time-to-market issue," says Tony Wilby, development director in Epicor's manufacturing solutions group. "We want to get a new manufacturing product on the market by the end of 2003, and to do that we need to leverage the business logic from the successful product that we have written on the Progress platform."��
Progress, recognizing that users want the freedom to choose the platform that suits their particular needs, has been working for some time to make its OpenEdge platform-compatible with both .NET and J2EE, according to David Olson, Progress' director of enterprise solutions.��
"The idea is that our partners can encapsulate their business logic into objects that are appropriate for things such as purchase orders," Olson explains. "They can then create interfaces to extend those objects to the .NET framework."��
The rise of .NET and J2EE has prompted Siebel Systems , San Mateo, Calif., to begin development of two new versions of its customer relationship management (CRM) software suite. The current version of the Siebel product is written in C++ and it uses Siebel's own application server. But Doug Smith, Siebel's vice president of architecture, says the company expects to release both J2EE and .NET versions of its suite by the end of 2004.��
"Analysts predict that there will be an equal mix of companies using J2EE and .NET," Smith says. "But the largest number of companies will use both. We will have J2EE and .NET versions of our product with the same functionality, and they can co-exist within the same customer's organization."�� http://linux.ittoolbox.com/common/print.asp?i=86638
MSI
Monday, January 13, 2003
As manufacturers look for the best way of using information technology (IT) to support their future business strategies, they should keep two facts in mind.��
First, the future of business computing will center on Internet-based applications. Second, almost all of those applications will be built on one of two software development platforms.��
These two platforms are Java 2 Enterprise Edition--commonly referred to as J2EE--which was introduced roughly three years ago by Sun Microsystems , Santa Clara, Calif.; and Microsoft .NET--pronounced dot Net--which was unveiled by Microsoft Corp. , Redmond, Wash., in 2002.��
Proponents of both platforms contend that they offer everything a company needs to build an IT infrastructure for doing business in the 21st century. Surprisingly, they're both right, although each platform has characteristics that make it more suitable for particular types of businesses.��
"We don't see one platform winning over the other; there will continue to be two camps," says Colleen Niven, vice president of technology research for the Boston-based consulting firm, AMR Research . In general, Niven says, large companies are gravitating toward J2EE while small and medium-size enterprises tend to favor .NET.��
From a functional standpoint, the two platforms are comparable, which is not surprising since they were developed for similar reasons. While these platforms can be used to build an IT infrastructure for any type of business, both Sun and Microsoft have organizations dedicated to helping manufacturers understand how these platforms can meet their particular needs.��
The future of manufacturing��
"If you look at our vision of the future of manufacturing, it includes an IT environment that integrates all aspects of the business," says Bill Gerould, Sun's director of manufacturing. "This environment links the customer side with the supplier side and the employee side, as well with product development, the factory floor, and all of the enterprise business applications.��
"Today, most of those departments operate in silos," Gerould continues. "So if I'm in product development, I buy whatever applications I need to do my individual job, and I don't worry much about what goes on outside of my silo."��
Gerould says Sun's attempt to help manufacturers change this dynamic revolves around an IT architecture called Sun Open Net Environment, or Sun ONE, of which J2EE is the major building block. "The architecture that we see with Sun ONE, as well as with .NET, will move all of an organization's applications to a Web-based infrastructure," Gerould says. "That means even if applications are built to address the needs of specific departments, they can be linked to this Internet backbone, which should make it easier for a company to integrate those applications as they see fit."��
Don Richardson, Microsoft's director of manufacturing industry solutions, says .NET was devised in response to "the struggles we were having with integrating disparate applications. At the time, integration only truly worked when the applications you wanted to integrate ran on the same [operating system], and they almost had to be on the same type of hardware."��
The underlying programming languages are the pieces of both the .NET and J2EE environments that do the most to facilitate smooth system integration. J2EE employs the Java programming language, which Sun introduced several years before it developed the other components of the J2EE framework. When Microsoft developed the .NET framework, it also created a new language called C# (pronounced C sharp), which some programmers contend is a modified version of Java.��
Boosts productivity��
Both of these are object-oriented languages, which means that the logic inside of an application is bundled into small packets, called objects, that can be easily reused to create new applications, or to add functionality and features to existing applications. Programmers say this drastically reduces the time it takes to develop applications, and that is a major reason why the majority of packaged application vendors are abandoning previous generations of software development tools in favor of J2EE or .NET.��
"Because Java is such a productive environment for the programmer, we can develop and deliver our applications much more quickly," says Debbie Schneider, senior product manager with PTC , Needham, Mass., a supplier of CAD and product life-cycle management (PLM) software. "Our customers benefit from our ability to add so many features and functionality to our products."��
In addition to these object-oriented programming languages, the J2EE and .NET frameworks contain a number of features that make it easier for organizations to conduct e-Business. These features, which often are referred to as services, include such things as Web commerce engines and programs that handle security functions such as verifying the identity of users on Internet-based networks.��
Most of the advertising for both J2EE and .NET refers to them as platforms for creating Web services, which have been hailed in many quarters as the next great advance in enterprise computing. Web services essentially are software components that have been outfitted with specific communications protocols that allow them to pass information from one application to another over the Internet, without the need for a direct connection between those two applications, and without regard for which operating systems the applications run on.��
It's unlikely that users of packaged applications will ever need to know anything about Web services protocols. That's because these protocols are embedded in both the J2EE and .NET environments, which makes it easier for application developers to convert pieces of their programs to Web services.��
No more plumbing��
David Willet, chief technologist for Frontstep , an enterprise resources planning (ERP) software supplier based in Columbus, Ohio, says having the .NET framework handle all of this "internal plumbing" leaves application developers free to add more useful features to a software package. Frontstep, which is set to be acquired by Atlanta-based ERP vendor MAPICS early in 2003, built SyteLine 7, the most recent version of its ERP package, on the .NET framework.��
"Before .NET, we spent a lot of time building documents that could travel through firewalls, which required the use of several [Web services protocols]," Willet says. "With .NET, we simply create the documents that we want to pass from one system to the next, and they are automatically delivered in the appropriate manner. This frees us up to be a company that creates business processes that our customers can use, rather than having to constantly master and manage new technology."��
Perhaps the most obvious sign that J2EE and .NET will be the development platforms of the future came roughly 18 months ago, when Walldorf, Germany-based SAP, the world's leading ERP software supplier, announced that it would begin building its applications on the J2EE framework. "The emergence of e-Business, which created the need for an open infrastructure, led to our adoption of J2EE," says Peter Kuerpick, SAP's senior vice president of server technology development. "That puts our applications on a platform in which there is common knowledge in the marketplace. That was appealing to our customers. It means they can work in a more familiar environment if they need to modify an application."��
Learning from history��
An application developer's choice of J2EE or .NET typically has more to do with the developer's history than with its future vision. "J2EE tends to be used more by companies that are moving from client/server applications that ran on the UNIX operating system," AMR's Nivens says. "That's why you see the larger enterprise system vendors like SAP, Oracle , [Redwood Shores, Calif.,] and PeopleSoft [Pleasanton, Calif.] adopting J2EE."��
On the other hand, companies whose previous applications ran on some version of Microsoft's Windows operating system, such as Frontstep, and SYSPRO , Costa Mesa, Calif., are more likely to use .NET. The vendors say there are practical reasons for these choices.��
"We considered both options before deciding on J2EE, because it gives our customers more choices," says Jack Young, an executive vice president with MRO Software , an enterprise asset management software supplier based in Bedford, Mass. "It allows our applications to run on the various UNIX platforms, as well as on Linux and Windows."��
The Java programming language allows J2EE-based applications to run on multiple platforms, but not everyone considers that a virtue. "J2EE has the same problems as the classic UNIX market," says Mike Carnahan, an executive vice president with ROI Systems , a mid-market-focused ERP supplier based in Minneapolis. "There are 16 varieties of it. For years we watched the UNIX wars that allowed Windows to come from nowhere to become the fastest-growing operating system. I think the same thing will happen with J2EE and .NET."��
The J2EE landscape does mirror the UNIX space in many ways. After Sun created J2EE, it released the specifications to the general public, leaving anyone free to develop applications and tools that comply with those specifications. The problems with this approach become most apparent when a company wants to use the J2EE platform as an e-Business backbone. That requires the use of a Web application server, which is a piece of middleware that stores and executes the business logic for Web-based applications. A number of vendors have developed J2EE Web applications servers, and each one has slightly different characteristics.��
Competing Web servers��
The two most popular J2EE Web application servers are WebSphere from IBM Armonk, N.Y; and WebLogic from BEA Systems , San Jose, Calif. Some application developers--including SAP, Oracle, and PTC--also have their own Web application servers.��
Brad Brown is chief architect with The Ultimate Software Consultants , a Lombard, Ill.-based IT services firm that specializes in Oracle consulting. He says Oracle's application server is nearly identical to WebSphere and WebLogic, but he also points out that there are other Web servers on the market, including some open source products, that don't adhere strictly to J2EE standards. "There are differences in the way you write applications for these various Web application servers," he says.��
Brown also concedes that with .NET, "Microsoft has done a nice job of bundling a lot of products together and making it easier to develop applications." The .NET bundle includes the C# programming language, an application development environment called Visual Studio.NET, and a Web application server. With J2EE, users have to assemble all of these pieces on their own.��
The experts advise users to consider their own history when deciding whether to purchase applications based on J2EE or .NET. Many companies are likely to end up with both platforms, even if they choose one as a corporate standard. "The good news is the two environments can co-exist," Nivens says. "There are ways of connecting them, including through Web services."��
While .NET applications tend to have lower cost of ownership because they come in a fully integrated package from a single vendor, the real issue is not J2EE versus .NET. "It's really a question of what your current IT infrastructure looks like, and what skills you have in your organization," says Nivens.��
"The Microsoft shops--those that have Visual Basic developers and experience with NT and SQLServer--will fare best with .NET-based applications," Nivens concludes. "If you're a UNIX house with a bunch of C programmers, you should probably look to the J2EE environment."��
For those reasons alone, these two platforms are bound to co-exist well into the future.��
A multiplatform universe Sidney Hill, Jr. Some application vendors embrace J2EE, .NET , and other platforms��
Industry analysts predict that many companies will deploy both J2EE and .NET in the same enterprise. But it also seems clear that these two platforms of the future will have to accommodate the numerous legacy systems that companies want to keep as part of their infrastructures.��
The realities of business make this type of co-existence necessary, and the concepts on which J2EE and .NET are based--specifically the idea of code reuse--make it possible. Both platforms allow for converting nearly any software code into a program object that can be linked with other objects to support a particular business process.��
This capability is critical to the recent announcement by Epicor Software, Irvine, Calif., that it will create a .NET version of its manufacturing software package that uses business logic created on the OpenEdge platform from Progress Software, Bedford, Mass.��
"This is a time-to-market issue," says Tony Wilby, development director in Epicor's manufacturing solutions group. "We want to get a new manufacturing product on the market by the end of 2003, and to do that we need to leverage the business logic from the successful product that we have written on the Progress platform."��
Progress, recognizing that users want the freedom to choose the platform that suits their particular needs, has been working for some time to make its OpenEdge platform-compatible with both .NET and J2EE, according to David Olson, Progress' director of enterprise solutions.��
"The idea is that our partners can encapsulate their business logic into objects that are appropriate for things such as purchase orders," Olson explains. "They can then create interfaces to extend those objects to the .NET framework."��
The rise of .NET and J2EE has prompted Siebel Systems , San Mateo, Calif., to begin development of two new versions of its customer relationship management (CRM) software suite. The current version of the Siebel product is written in C++ and it uses Siebel's own application server. But Doug Smith, Siebel's vice president of architecture, says the company expects to release both J2EE and .NET versions of its suite by the end of 2004.��
"Analysts predict that there will be an equal mix of companies using J2EE and .NET," Smith says. "But the largest number of companies will use both. We will have J2EE and .NET versions of our product with the same functionality, and they can co-exist within the same customer's organization."�� http://linux.ittoolbox.com/common/print.asp?i=86638
- posted by sankarshan @ 1/17/2003 06:50:00 AM
