News

Systinet plugs into Eclipse

• By Rich Seeley
• October 12, 2004

Finding that the majority of coders using its Java server are working with Eclipse, Systinet is coming out with a set of tools specifically designed for the popular open-source IDE.

Last week, the company announced Systinet Developer for Eclipse, which it says is 'the first and only' toolset to support Version 3 of the Eclipse IDE. The tools plug into the Eclipse IDE and make it easier for developers to build Web services applications that run on Systinet Server for Java.

'What's happened over the last four years is that Eclipse has become -- by far -- the most popular IDE of choice of what developers want to use with our product,' David Butler, Systinet's VP of marketing, tells JDT. '[And] it's free for developers to use the Systinet developer and server product, so it's kind of in the spirit of Eclipse.'

Of course, for Systinet, being a for-profit company, commercial deployment on its Java server is in the spirit of capitalism.

'The difference is when customers go in to deploy their application; that's when they have to pay for the runtime services we provide, and that starts at $2,000 a CPU,' Butler says. 'But as far as development purposes, it's free.'

Developers can download the tools and Java server from the Systinet Web site so they can build and do a test deployment of the application. While it may be debatable whether the best things in life are free, Butler insists the Systinet plug-ins for Eclipse are not lightweight editors but hefty tools that play well with other Eclipse plug-ins.

'It's not just kind of a WSDL, XML editing environment, either,' he says. 'What we've done is a complete development of a Web services application environment that's a non-invasive tool that works within the Eclipse standard plug-in interface. That means we support the concept of Eclipse where you'll be able to have data and use other tools within the overall environment.'

Developers using the Systinet tools can point and click their way to redeploying an existing Java app as a Web service in 'a matter of minutes,' the vendor says. Working with the W3C and Oasis, Systinet made sure the tools support Web services standards ranging from the basic WSDL, SOAP and UDDI to the latest WS-Security, Butler says.

The tools have the Eclipse seal of approval. 'Web services and SOA is becoming increasingly important for the Eclipse community. Systinet's Web services development tools for SOA is an important extension to the Eclipse ecosystem,' says Mike Milinkovich, executive director of Eclipse.

Key features of the Systinet Eclipse plug-ins include: * Generating Web service client proxies and simple client test applications automatically from WSDL. * Client- and server-side Web service debugging. Server-side debugging can be performed remotely and in any environment, including BEA WebLogic and IBM WebSphere.

* Support for packaging Web services in a standard JAR file with the deployment descriptor to be deployed to the Systinet Server runtime.

More information and downloads are available at http://www.systinet.com/products/wasp_developer/overview