At JavaOne: Novell shows off SilverStream arsenal -- ADTmag

At JavaOne: Novell shows off SilverStream arsenal

By ADT Staff
June 11, 2003

[SAN FRANCISCO, CALIF.] -- Novell showed some of the fruits of its SilverStream Software acquisition at this week's JavaOne Developer Conference in San Francisco. As with recent tool-related products from competitors, the Novell releases of exteNd and Nsure software look to reduce the complexity of enterprise development, especially for application integration tasks.

Within the Novell suite is exteNd Composer, which features a visual drag-and-drop interface that allows developers to map data and transactions from mainframes, AS/400s and other legacy systems into XML. Novell recently added an exteNd Composer connector for LDAP directories based on Directory Services Markup Language (DSML) to its connector collection. The exteNd approach is said to adhere to Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) and Web services schemes.

Meanwhile, Nsure forms the basis of Novell's effort to provide secure, directory-enabled Web services. It implements a form of the Secure Assertions Markup Language (SAML) extension so that businesses can securely share authentication and user attribute information.

"Novell's goal is to move from an infrastructure company to a solutions company," said David Litwack, Novell senior VP of Web application development products, and former head of SilverStream. He is responsible for the former SilverStream tools and Novell's directory products.

"The business I'm responsible for is a $100 million business in software and an additional 50% of that in services," said Litwack.

"We want to ease Java development. Developers don't want a Java IDE," said Litwack. Novell's Java tools eliminate the need for a Java IDE, he added. Companies such as Oracle, BEA and even Java originator Sun Microsystems led similar discussions on the potential for simpler Java development tools at the premier Java conference.

Looking forward, said Litwack, Novell will be implementing a number of emerging standards within Novell exteNd Director in its next release. Focusing on XForms from the W3C and Java Specification Request (JSR) 168 from the Java Community Process, this software is expected to cut the amount of programming necessary to build interactive Web applications.