Although Cape Clear's offerings are completely J2EE-based, its products do not support deployment of J2EE-standard WAR or EAR files, as is found in more traditional application-server-based implementations, such as Sun's Sun ONE Application Server 7 and Novell's Extend 4.0. While CapeConnect can be deployed into a J2EE application server, deployment of Web services to CapeConnect is still limited.
Cape Clear uses Web services to deploy, publish and manage Web services deployed to CapeConnect, whether it's deployed as a standalone or within a J2EE application server. This is a common thread for platforms specializing in Web services. Iona and Systinet, both offering a standalone deployment configuration, also take advantage of Web services as a deployment model. We liked this model during testing--configuration within the IDE for deployment was greatly simplified, and we could deploy our echoInt service with the click of a button and minimal configuration. However, it's difficult to move from one platform to another, since a service packaged by one platform cannot easily be deployed to another platform without repackaging, the management model becomes proprietary in nature.
CapeConnect 4 Server and CapeStudio 4, $1,500 per developer. Cape Clear Software, (888) 227-3439, (781) 622-2258. www.capeclear.com
Systinet Corp. Web Application and Services Platform (WASP) Server for Java 4.5; Web Application and Services Platform (WASP) Server for C++ 4.5
Systinet WASP took us by surprise by incorporating corporate-class features into a platform and making it all look easy. Systinet's was the only product we tested to provide message-level security from the administration console as well as detailed monitoring on a per-service basis. Although Novell did an excellent job offering monitoring of Extend via the management console, no one came close to providing the level of detail available in Systinet's console. For our deployed echoInt service it was possible to examine the number of requests (both total, successful and failed) as well as average, longest and last transaction times. Letting us apply security to our Web service was also impressive. We could allow only specified users to access our echoInt service from the console--without server-side code modification. Other vendors should take Systinet's lead and incorporate this type of functionality.
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