Compuware Corp. Monday announced a new version of its OptimalJ Java development system and outlined its vision for helping developers build service-oriented, model-based enterprise applications.
Detroit-based Compuware released OptimalJ 3.1 along with support for Web services security, enhanced legacy integration capabilities and support for testing different application servers in the OptimalJ environment.
Mike Burba, product manager for OptimalJ, said with OptimalJ 3.1 “were outlining our vision for the way applications are going to be built going forward—using model-driven pattern-based development.”
Burba said among the challenges facing Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) developers are high rates of failure with Java projects, difficulty with legacy integration and reduced productivity, but “we believe model-driven pattern-based will grow in use and help not only with development but with maintenance,” he said.
“As J2EE application development continues to mature, model-driven development with architecture-based code generation will become as prevalent as traditional enterprise fourth-generation languages were in the 1990s,” Michael Blechar, vice president and research director at Gartner Inc., in Stamford, Conn., said in a statement. “As development organizations search for better, more productive, ways to design integrated applications that support new and traditional business initiatives, model-driven development will find its way into the hands of most development organizations.”
Model-driven, pattern-based development employs patterns to translate business models into working applications.
“Model-driven development gives people a way to move things forward,” said Burba. “And we think therell be a role for distributed development.”
OptimalJ 3.1 supports the Web Services-Security specification from the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS). It also supports Unified Modeling Language (UML) and integrates with other modeling tools such as IBMs Rational Rose and Borland Software Corp.s Together Control Center. In addition, the new version of OptimalJ enables testing of the BEA Systems Inc. WebLogic Server and IBM WebSphere Application Server in the OptimalJ test environment. And OptimalJ 3.1 has legacy modernization features, Burba said. One such feature includes support for IBMs WebSphere MQ software.
“Weve upgraded our modeling capabilities, and were also supporting our drive for legacy modernization,” Burba said. “Were building an ecosystem around OptimalJ to deliver this model-driven, pattern-based approach to building applications.”
Burba said part of its ecosystem includes developing relationships with other independent software vendors as well as channel partners such as Programmers Paradise and ComponentSource. The company also recently entered into a partnership with BEA to integrate OptimalJ with BEAs WebLogic Workshop Java development tool, Burba said. And Compuware is a founding member of the recently formed Java Tools Committee, he added.