Microsoft, Noelios Bridge Java, .NET with REST

Microsoft and Noelios Technologies, a France-based consulting services company specializing in Web technologies, have released a new technology bridge between Java and .NET.

"Noelios Technologies is shipping a new version of the Restlet open-source project, a lightweight REST [Representational State Transfer] framework for Java that includes the Restlet Extension for [Microsoft's] ADO.NET Data Services," Jean-Christophe Cimetiere, a senior technical evangelist for Microsoft, wrote in a blog post Sept. 28.

"Java developers using the Restlet Extension for ADO.NET Data Services can now connect their applications to a .NET platform with relative ease, which means more choices for Java developers and new opportunities for Microsoft," Cimetiere said.

Cimetiere explained that the extension simply "makes it easier for Java developers to take advantage of ADO.NET Data Services." Elsewhere in the post, he said:

"The Restlet Extension for ADO.NET Data Services provides a high-level client API that extends the Restlet Framework's core capability by providing access to remote data services that are hosted on ASP.NET servers or the Windows Azure cloud computing platform.

"Java developers use the extension's code generator to create Java classes that correspond to data entities exposed through ADO.NET Data Services. The Java application is then able to accesses the data via a simple method call. The runtime components in the Restlet engine and the extension take care of the communication between the Java client application and ADO.NET Data Services."

According to Cimetiere, the bottom line is that the interoperability is all due to REST. He wrote: "Looking beyond just the Java-Microsoft bridge, REST is a truly compelling architecture model for enabling interoperability between all kinds of different platforms, regardless [of] whether the applications are run on [premises] or in the cloud. We've recently presented several scenarios that leverage REST ('Viewing government data with Windows Azure and PHP: a cloud operability scenario using REST,' and 'A new bridge for PHP developers to .NET through REST: Toolkit for PHP with ADO.NET Data Services'), and we plan to continue sharing similar scenarios between various technologies."