Switching J2EE Application Servers
September 12th, 2009 | by richfreedman |
I’ve seen a lot of articles lately that talk about the nuts and bolts of moving from one J2EE server to another.
I’ve also seen that a number of companies are struggling with this issue, sometimes even just when upgrading to a newer version from the same vendor.
Umm…folks…J2EE is supposed to be a standard.
Remember, “write once, run anywhere” ? That was supposed to be especially easy on the server side.
Well, actually it is, if you resist the temptation to use proprietary, non-standard features.
I have never willingly written a line of vendor-specific J2EE code or configuration – and I suggest that you don’t either.
There’s almost always a standards-compliant, or at least portable way to do whatever you need.
If you’re having an issue moving your J2EE application to a different server, you’ve probably done something horribly wrong. Frankly, this is true of databases as well (see my “stupidity rant” from earlier today).
Ok, so you have a legacy app that uses vendor-specific features. Maybe you didn’t write it – you’re just stuck maintaining it.
Remember this when you are rewritng your legacy app – stay away from vendor-specific features this time, and don’t create another instant-legacy app.
