Building Scalable and High-Performance Java Web Applications Using J2EE Technology [Paperback]

Greg Barish (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 27, 2001

Provides the concise roadmap Java developers and Web engineers need to build high-performance and scalable enterprise Web applications. Packed with general system architecture tips and balanced with succinct examples for each technology. Softcover.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Building Scalable and High-Performance Java™ Web Applications Using J2EE™ Technology provides the concise roadmap Java developers and Web engineers need to build high-performance and scalable enterprise Web applications. It is unique in its focus on building efficient end-to-end solutions based on the widely adopted J2EE specification. Each of the relevant technologies is summarized and analyzed in terms of its scalability and performance implications. Special attention is also given to those parts of Web application design that extend beyond the J2EE specification, including strategies for efficient networking and database design.

Packed with general system architecture tips and balanced with succinct examples for each technology, this book allows you to focus on practical strategies for effective application design without getting overwhelmed with useless detail. As a result, you will quickly and easily be able to understand how to use J2EE technologies to build application systems that deliver scalability and high performance.

Coverage includes:

• Essentials of Web application architecture
• The J2EE standard
• General techniques for building scalable and high-performance systems
• The HTTP protocol, with special focus on features that maximize performance
• Java™ Servlets and JavaServer Pages™ (JSP)
• Enterprise JavaBeans™ (EJB)
• Java™ Message Service (JMS)
• Effective database design techniques
• Efficient database management with JDBC™ and SQL
• Essentials of Web Services, including XML, SOAP, WSDL, and UDDI

0201729563B12172001

About the Author

Greg Barish is a consultant specializing in the design of and architecture for scalable and high-performance Web applications. He has held engineering positions at both Oracle and at Healtheon/WebMD, where he was primarily involved in the design and implementation of object-oriented, distributed application systems. Mr. Barish earned a B.S. in cognitive science from UCLA and an M.S. in computer science from the University of Southern California.

0201729563AB12172001

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Product Details

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional (December 27, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0201729563
• ISBN-13: 978-0201729566
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,692,665 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Depth and architecture clearly presented, April 4, 2002

By 

Mike Tarrani "www.tarrani.com" (Deltona, FL USA) - See all my reviews
(COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Building Scalable and High-Performance Java Web Applications Using J2EE Technology (Paperback)

There are few authors who can clearly impart the complexities of attaining scalability and performance as design and construction goals. Greg Barish is among the anointed few. He achieves this with conversational prose--as though he were mentoring you--and examples that reinforce each concept as it's presented.

If you work in multiple development environments this book is doubly valuable because it's divided almost equally between generic concepts and techniques, and J2EE-specific advice. While the performance and scalability techniques presented in this book don't approach those embodied in books by Daniel A. Menasce and Virgilio A. F. Almeida, or Raj Jain, they are more than sufficient for software engineers and architects. Therein lies the value of this book - it sidesteps the queuing theory, probability and regression analysis and presents scalability in down-to-earth terms, using relatively simple math. This realistic, practical approach ensures that the design and development team will actually use the information in this book. Yes, the more formal approaches are better - they are just ignored, and the lite techniques in this book are far better than nothing, and will inspire developers to dig deeper after they've seen the results.

What I like about this book: (1) each chapter builds upon the preceding one, (2) all of the major aspects of web services development are addressed with a focus on scalability and performance in every chapter, (3) special skills, such as database connectivity, and the building blocks, such as XML and SOAP, are covered, and (4) while the book seems simple it delves into nuances of J2EE with respect to scalability and performance. The 'simplicity' is an illusion that comes from the author's ability to write well.

The value of this book is that it does make scalability and performance techniques accessible to most developers, even those who are math-challenged (and there are quite a few of them out there). I read it twice - once for the subject matter and the second pass to dissect the way the book was written. I gained much from both passes.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Decide the extent to use each J2EE technology in your design, March 8, 2002

By 

Jim Hammond (Bristow, VA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Building Scalable and High-Performance Java Web Applications Using J2EE Technology (Paperback)

I am designing a web site for my own business that will provide an on-line service for which organizations can purchase subscriptions for their members.

This book quickly finalized my decision on the extent to which I would use the following technologies in my design. JSP, Servlets, Stateful Session Beans, Stateless Session Beans, Entity Beans, CMP, and BMP. This is exactly why I bought the book. It also gave me some unexpected insights such as how JMS, JNDI, and JTA could be helpful.

I am an experienced programmer, but my Java experience consists of a few months of servlet development. If you have already done a commercial application using these technologies, then this book has nothing to teach you.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Clear description of important concepts, April 3, 2002

By 

Linda Zarate "IT Ops Consultant" (Azusa, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Building Scalable and High-Performance Java Web Applications Using J2EE Technology (Paperback)

While this book uses J2EE as the basis for scalability and performance strategies in web application development, it is also useful regardless of the development and technical environment.

The author begins this book with the clearest and easiest-to-follow descriptions of performance and scalability and how to measure them that I've ever read. The same treatment was given to web applications architecture, which is the second topic in sequence. I like Mr. Barish's straightforward, conversational writing style and use of simple (but effective) illustrations, graphs and examples that make complex concepts easy-to-grasp.

I stated above that this book can be used outside of the J2EE environment, and here are the chapters that are generic enough to accomplish this: 1 (Scalable and High Performance Web Applications), 2 (Web Application Architecture), 4 (Scalability and Performance Techniques), 5 (HTTP Client/Server Communication), 10 (Effective Database Design) and 12 (The Future of Web Applications). While each of these chapters are well written and go into sufficient detail for developers and architects I particularly liked chapter 10 because he explained relational database fundamentals and SQL programming with such clarity that I got more from the 42 pages that comprise this chapter than I did from a 300+ page book on the topic. The follow-on chapter on JDBC and SQL is as well written. Another reason why I liked chapter 10 is many developers understand how to develop servlets and components, but do not have sufficient understanding of relational databases. This book rectifies that, which is particularly important since most real world applications are data intensive and need to connect to databases.

Additional strong points about this book include: code examples are only given to reinforce a concept or show an example. Don't expect to find a recipe book based on code - this book is about making it scalable and giving it performance characteristics. The J2EE-specific parts of the book use realistic examples and propose real world approaches. However, the strongest aspect of this book is the author stays focused on scalability and performance throughout the book, always ending each chapter with scalability and performance hints that are related to the chapter's topic.

This book is for architects and software engineers who are building applications that support business-critical needs. It's clear, concise and exceptionally well written.