Deploying Java Software: Existing Solutions
This chapter will cover existing ready-to-use solutions aimed at the deployment of Java software for industry-quality programs.
Introduction
Deployment solutions can be thought of as being divided into two main groups: one group is specific only to Java programs; the other is suitable for other technologies as well, including Java. We will focus on Java-specific deployment solutions because they are the only ones that assure the better exploitation of Java's features. There are also many general deployment and application management solutions that are suitable for Java deployment. These include Marimba's Castanet, NetDeploy, and many others that we won't discuss hereto keep us strictly focused on our main topic, deployment.
When choosing a deployment solution, there are many parameters to consider, including technical ones (scalability, deployment lifecycle coverage, and so on) and commercial ones (price, licensing, and so on). In this chapter, we will cover only technical details, for the purpose of illustrating the current commercial state-of-the-art in the field, rather than proposing any particular opinion on products.
We will take advantage of the abstract model described in Chapter 2, "An Abstract Model for Deployment," in order to present all the systems in a coherent and more precise way.