Building Scalable and High-Performance Java™ Web Applications Using J2EE™ Technology

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

Preface.


1. Scalable and High-Performance Web Applications.


The Emergence of Web Applications.



Some Basic Definitions.



The Nature of the Web and Its Challenges.



Performance and Scalability.



Performance.



Scalability.



The Internet Medium.



Wide Audience.



Interactive.



Dynamic.



Always On.



Integrated.



Lack of Complete Control.



Measuring Performance and Scalability.



Measuring Performance Other Types of Measurements.



Measuring Scalability.



Throughput and Price/Performance.



Scalability and Performance Hints.



Think End-to-End.



Scalability Does Not Equal Performance.



Measure Scalability by Comparison.



Summary.



2. Web Application Architecture.


Web Application Terminology.



Application Requirements.



Business Logic Requirements.



Data Management Requirements.



Interface Requirements.



Web Requirements.



Network Connectivity Requirements.



Abstract Web Application Architecture.



From Client to Server: Thin-Clients and Fat-Clients.



Persistent Data Management.



N-tier Application Architecture.



The Client.



The Network.



The Server.



Tier-Based Designs.



Challenge: Efficient Middleware.



Scalability and Performance Hints.



Don't Always Starve Thin Clients.



Use or Build Multithreaded Application Servers.



Find the Right Granularity.



Summary.



3. The J2EE Specification.


An Overview of the Specification.



Deployment Issues.



Packaging.



Deployment Descriptor Files.



Platform Technologies and Services.



Component Communication via the RMI-IIOP Protocol.



Transaction Management Using the Java Transaction API.



JNDI for Resource Location.



J2EE and Your Architecture.



Summary.



4. General Scalability and Performance Techniques.


Caching/Replication.



Parallelism.



Redundancy.



Asynchrony.



Resource Pooling.



Summary.



5. HTTP Client/Server Communication.


The HTTP Protocol.



Deployment Paradigms.



Applications with Browsers as Clients.



Applications without Browsers as Clients.



Efficiency of the HTTP Protocol.



HTTP Protocol Details.



Detailed Protocol Semantics.



HTTP Requests.



The GET Method.



The POST Method.



HTTP 1.1 Caching Details.



Connection Management.



Performance and Scalability Hints.



Use HTTP GET and POST Judiciously.



Consider Using HTTP for Non-Browser Clients.



Promote HTTP Response Caching.



Support Persistent Connections.



Summary.



6. Request Processing: Concepts and Strategies.


The General Problem.



Specific Challenges.



Connection Management.



Data Marshalling.



Request Servicing.



Modes of Request Processing.



Synchronous.



Asynchronous Communication.



Scalability and Performance Implications.



The Role of J2EE in Request Processing.



Web Serving.



Synchronous Processing with Java Servlets and Java Server Pages.



Asynchronous Processing with the Java Message Service.



Scalability and Performance Hints.



Prefer Asynchronous Communication.



Stream Data between Threads.



Develop Remote Methods That Encourage Efficiency.



Summary.



7. Session Management with Java Servlets.


Generating Dynamic Responses.



Common Gateway Interface.



Extending the Web Server through Its API.



Redirecting the Web Server Request.



Using Servlets.



Servlets and Servlet Containers.



Interacting with a Servlet.



Web Server and Servlet Container Integration Details.



Developing Servlets.



Designing the Servlet Interface.



Coding the Servlet.



Servlet Execution.



How a Servlet Container Works.



Servlets and Multithreading.



Servlets and Session Management.



What Is Session Management?



Session Identification.



Using HTTP User Authentication.



Using Hidden Form Fields.



Using Rewritten URLs.



Using HTTP Persistent Cookies.



Using the Java Servlet Session Tracking API.



Deploying Servlets.



Session Management with Multiple Containers.



Developing Servlets with Java Server Pages.



Sample JSP Page.



The Structure of a JSP Page.



How JSP Works.



JSP Directives.



So, what is JSP... really?



Performance and Scalability Hints.



Prefer Fine-Grain Serialization.



Prefer Hardware-Based Load Balancing.



Use Servlets for Session Management, not Business Logic.



Think Twice about Using JSP.



Summary.



8. Building Application Servers with Enterprise Java Beans.


The Need for Application Servers.



Application Logic and Where to Deploy It.



Enterprise Java Beans: The J2EE Solution.



How EJBs Work.



Types of EJBs.



Example Application.



EJB Design.



Session Beans.



Entity Beans.



Message-Driven Beans.



EJB Implementation.



Bean Development Responsibilities.



Session Beans.



Entity Beans.



Message-Driven Beans.



Client/EJB Integration.



Client/EJB Communication: Behind the Scenes.



Performance and Scalability Hints.



Prefer Message-Driven Beans over Session Beans.



When You Use Session Beans, Use Stateless Session Beans.



Strive for Coarse-Grain EJB Methods.



Use BMP Well or Don't Use It at All.



Know Your Vendor.



Summary.



9. Messaging for Efficient Enterprise Application Integration.


A B2B-Style Working Example.



The Java Message Service.



JMS Concepts.



Providers.



Clients.



Messages.



Administrative Objects.



JMS Programming Models.



Model-Specific Administrative Object Interfaces.



The Synchrony of Message Consumption.



JMS Reliability versus Performance.



Client Acknowledgment.



Message Persistence.



Timing Dependencies and JMS Publishing Models.



Using JMS: An Example Pub/Sub Application.



Developing the Message Publisher.



Developing the Message Subscriber.



Towards Deployment.



Scalability and Performance Hints.



Prefer Messaging—Both Inside and Out.



Understand the JMS Efficiency versus Reliability Tradeoff.



Summary.



10. Effective Database Design.


Database Technology and the Relational Model.



Relational Databases.



Logical Database Design.



Entities, Attributes, and Relationships.



Physical Database Design.



Tables and Rows.



Constraints.



Querying a Database.



Querying Data.



Nested Queries.



Join Queries.



Other Important Database Objects.



Views.



Stored Procedures.



Triggers.



Indexes.



Sequences.



Other Objects.



Query Processing.



Scalability and Performance Hints.



Understand How to Use the Database.



Understand When to Use the Database.



Understand How Your Data Will Be Accessed.



Normalize Your Data Model.



Selectively Denormalize Your Model.



Use Stored Procedures.



Avoid Triggers and Other Implicit Execution.



Know Your Vendor.



Summary.



11. Using JDBC and SQL to Efficiently Query Databases.


How JDBC Fits In.



JDBC Concepts and Objects.



An Overview of Querying with JDBC.



Relevant JDBC Classes and Their Relationships.



Connecting to a Database.



Writing JDBC Queries.



Processing a Statement.



Iterating through Results.



Executing Single Updates.



Other Kinds of Updates: Creating Tables and Stored Procedures.



Beyond the Basics.



Prepared Statements.



Dynamic SQL.



Transaction Management.



Bidirectional Results Iteration.



Updateable Results.



Executing Batch Updates.



Scalability and Performance Hints.



Use Prepared Statement When Possible.



Use Batch Updates with a Remote Database.



Don't Overcommit.



Use Multithreading to Query in Parallel.



Summary.



12. Web Services: The Future of Web Applications.


What Exactly Is a Web Service?



Surveying Web Service Technologies.



A Quick Tour of the Technologies.



Putting It All Together.



XML: Self-describing Data.



DTDs and Schema Languages.



Parsing XML.



XML-Related Technologies.



Coding Web Services.



Describing Web Services with WSDL.



WSDL Definitions.



WSDL Example.



Invoking Web Services with SOAP.



How SOAP Works.



Using SOAP over HTTP.



Registering Web Services with UDDI.



UDDI Standards.



The UDDI APIs.



The Big Picture.



The Provider Perspective.



The Consumer Perspective.



Scalability and Performance Challenges.



Replicating and Load Balancing Remote Functions.



XML Parsing Performance.



Summary.



Bibliography.


Index.