Enterprise JavaBeans, JavaBeans and XML expanding the possibilities for Web-based enterprise application development

Component-based software development (CBSD) has emerged as the best hope for building high-quality Web-based enterprise applications in a timely manner. CBSD has the potential to reduce significantly development cost and time-to-market of Web-based enterprise applications, and improve the maintainability, reliability and overall quality of those applications. A major issue in a CBSD project is the selection of a component model that is the most suitable for the project. Another major issue is providing cost-effective, cross-platform and secure data exchange. To address these issues, a new CBSD approach to building Web-based enterprise applications has been developed. This approach integrates a Java-based component model with XML. This paper focuses on the approach due to its great potential to revolutionize Web-based enterprise application development. We have adopted the approach for development of 3-tier Web-based enterprise applications for E-commerce and distance education. The lessons learned from those R&D projects are presented.