Chapter 4: Interoperability Technologies: Point to Point

Overview

Designing an effective interoperability solution requires a detailed understanding of the techniques used to connect Java and .NET Framework systems. This chapter looks at the means you can employ to link the two platforms in point to point scenarios, where one application interoperates synchronously with another.

The technologies that allow .NET Framework and Java to interoperate on a point to point basis fall into two main categories:

• .NET Remoting

• XML Web services

.NET Remoting is the first technology covered; it provides advantages such as greater performance and easy implementation in a pure .NET Framework environment. However, Java applications cannot connect using .NET Remoting directly; they require the implementation of a runtime bridge. This chapter investigates two of the most popular runtime bridge offerings, Ja.NET and JNBridgePro.

Web services are increasingly fashionable whenever developers and system architects start discussing interoperability. Web services certainly promise ubiquity and the freedom from having to describe methods explicitly, but they are not always the best interoperability solution.