Sun updates J2EE for Web services

Sun Microsystems has released a preliminary version of an update to its Java 2 Enterprise Edition software, with support for a major new Web services standard.

Sun announced late Thursday that a qualification release of the source code for version 1.4 of Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) is available to licensees. The release is intended to give developers an early look at additions to the J2EE code, so they can start building applications around the new features. J2EE has become one of the most significant variations on Sun's Java programming language, serving as the basis for a myriad of Web applications. The most significant addition to version 1.4 is support for Basic Profile, the comprehensive Web services standard released last month by the Web services Interoperability organization (WS-I).

The WS-I is a consortium whose 150 members include representatives from major software makers and corporate customers. The WS-I profile is designed to allow disparate computing systems to exchange data, thus encouraging adoption of Web services. It includes specifications for some of the current building blocks of Web services, such as Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) 1.1, Web Services Description Language (WSDL) 1.1, Universal Description Discovery and Integration (UDDI) 2.0 and Extensible Markup Language (XML) formats.