News

JNBridgePro 7.1 Allows Access to Java Code from Visual Studio 2013

• By John K. Waters
• December 17, 2013

Java/.NET interoperability solutions provider JNBridge has upgraded its flagship product, JNBridgePro, to allow developers to access Java code from Visual Studio 2013. Version 7.1 is an incremental release, but its support for VS 2013 is a notable enhancement. Microsoft released VS 2013 to manufacturing in October, and made the release candidate of the first update available for download earlier this month.

"The need to support the new Visual Studio drove this release," Wayne Citrin, CTO of JNBridge, told ADTmag. The Boulder, Colo.-based company is a member of Microsoft's Visual Studio Partner (VSIP) Program.

This release also comes with upgrades of its JMS (Java Message Service) Adapters for BizTalk and .NET. Versions 3.1 provide support for the JMS 2.0 specification, an improved tracing feature and current configuration documents. Version 7.1 also completes the company's "any-CPU" feature to include the ability to specify separate 32-bit and 64-bit JVMs in a single shared-memory application in .NET-to-Java application configuration files.

"In theory the developer shouldn't have to know, or even care, what kind of machine he's creating his applications for," Citrin said. "We got most of the support for that in 7.0, but a key piece, the ability to specify which version of Java you need, was missing. We added that final piece in this release. For the developer, that's one less potential error -- and one less support call for us."

JNBridgePro is a general purpose Java/.NET interoperability tool designed to bridge anything Java to .NET and vice versa, allowing developers to access the entire API from either platform. As Citrin explained it, the tool "connects Java and .NET Framework-based components and applications with simple-to-use Visual Studio and Eclipse plug-ins that remove the complexities of cross-platform interoperability."

"A big piece of our business is the adapters, particularly the JMS adapters," Citrin said. "There's a lot of incumbent and legacy JMS infrastructure out there. It's still one of the most common ways to connect components in an enterprise and pass data around. But more importantly, both platforms are well established -- neither one is going away -- and integrating components on the two platforms is now an everyday occurrence."

Last year, JNBridge began offering a series of interoperability scenarios called "Labs," designed to help developers to "try out and tackle new ways of connecting disparate technologies both on the ground and in the cloud." The JNBridge Labs are free and available as downloadable "kits" that include code and documentation. Along with the 7.1 release, the company announced two new Labs: one that integrates Excel with Linux-based Hadoop MapReduce applications and HBase; and one that allows developers to create a .NET/Visio-based graphical front end to monitor the health of a Hadoop cluster. The Labs are available on the company's Web site.