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by Christian Weyer.
Original Post: Not always the 'obvious': integrating Java and .NET
Feed Title: Christian Weyer: Web Services & .NET
Feed URL: http://www.asp.net/err404.htm?aspxerrorpath=/cweyer/Rss.aspx
Feed Description: Philosophizing about and criticizing the brave new world ...
Yeah, Web services are the way to go! SOA and the like are the only thing that makes sense in the now(?) and in the future. Rock and roll! Really? Well, no. Or better said: it depends. Despite the fact that very interesting postings and articles, full of invaluable information appearing in the last weeks and months, we sometimes should sit down and think if we just could get things together in a more easy and perhaps more straight forward way. Simon Guest tried this and in my opinion he succeeded. His new book is full of very interesting and helpful concepts, techniques and samples.
Integrating .NET and Java has so may facets and layers. And only one of those is using Web services technologies. We should distinguish between simple, synchronous, point-to-point communciation and the more decoupled, asychronous messaging patterns. This is the least difference we should identify as we know that most of our business processes are more asynchronous than synchronous. So there are also paths to integrate systems just by leveraging .NET Remoting or by using MQ interoperability means, just as two examples. Without the additional layer(s) in the Web services stack.
One thing I actually do not like about the book is the title. 'Microsoft .NET and J2EE Interoperability Kit'. This wording is misleading as we tempt to compare apples with peas. But as a book author I know that the writer not always has the last word when it comes to name the child ... :-( I hope to find a free weekend soon (hahaha ...) to go intensely through the chapters and playing with the source code samples.
Anyway, this is a great book for everyone responsible to integrate between the major two software development platform nowadays - and also for those who look for advice in architecture and integration patterns (although the last issue is not so obvious in the book).
Integration does not mandate Web services, SOA or similar buzzwords. At least not when just talking about .NET and Java. SOA and Web services can make it a lot easier - yes - someday ... perhaps. The concepts are still being discussed and we will have to watch a lot of water going down the big rivers overall in the world to actually being able to leverage SOA based architectures just by 'applying' them. This leads me back to my ideas about this mysterious thing in LA ... Don't get me wrong! I am absolutely convinced that SOA in conjunction with Web services and WSA are the way to go in the future in many projects. But we really should not close our eyes to see the other obvious solutions - and try to take off the WSA branded glasses sometimes. Just my 2 cents ...
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