Types of client applications
You can write client applications that run separately from your application server. A client application uses the framework provided by an underlying client to access the resources provided by WebSphere® Application Server.
Several types of clients are installed either with WebSphere Application Server or, optionally, with the Application Client for WebSphere Application Server.
The following table provides a comparison of the different types of clients that are available.
Stand-alone thin clients | Resource Adapter for JMS | Java EE client (Java EE mode of Application Client) | Java thin client (Java SE mode of Application Client) | Java EE client (Java EE mode of Application Server1 | Java thin client (Java SE mode of Application Server) 1 | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Unique characteristics | Embeddable single jar with small footprint | JCA v1.5 resource adapter with small footprint | Large client footprint with many files | Large client footprint with many files | Very large server footprint with many files | Very large server footprint with many files |
Supported execution environment | Java SE | Java EE v1.4 application server: Apache Geronimo, WebSphere Application Server Community Edition, JBoss | Java EE client container | Java SE | Java EE client container | Java SE |
Supported Java vendors | IBM®, Sun, and HP-UX | As per J2EE vendor | Supplied IBM application server | Supplied IBM application server | Supplied IBM application server | Supplied IBM application server |
Supported Java version | See Table 2 |
|
Supplied IBM JRE | Supplied IBM JRE | Supplied IBM JRE | Supplied IBM JRE |
Supported transactions | No transactions and local transactions | No transactions, local transactions, and XA transactions for JMS | No transactions, and local transactions for JMS | No transactions, and local transactions for JMS | No transactions, local transactions for JMS | No transactions, and local transactions for JMS |
Easily embedded | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
Include JNDI lookup capability to WebSphere Application Server | Available through the Thin Client for Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) | Not applicable (relies on host application server JNDI) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Connectivity support | TCP and SSL | TCP and SSL | TCP, HTTP, and SSL | TCP, HTTP, and SSL | TCP, HTTP, and SSL | TCP, HTTP, and SSL |
Notable restrictions | Thin Client for JMS does not support HTTP connectivity. For web services, the use of SOAP/JMS is not supported by the thin-client environment. The Administration Thin Client does not support co-existence with other thin clients. |
No HTTP connectivity | None | None | None | None |
License type | IPLA (unlimited copy but no redistribution), and ILAN (redistribution) | IPLA (unlimited copy but no redistribution), and ILAN (redistribution) | IPLA (unlimited copy but no redistribution), and ILAN (redistribution) | IPLA (unlimited copy but no redistribution), and ILAN (redistribution) | IPLA | IPLA |
1 The information in this column relates to WebSphere Application Server when used as the client runtime environment.
The following table provides additional information on the supported JRE versions for stand-alone thin clients.
Type | JRE Versions |
---|---|
Enterprise JavaBeans thin client |
|
Java Message Service thin client |
|
Java API for XML-based RPC (JAX-RPC) thin client |
|
Java API for XML-Based Web Services (JAX-WS) thin client |
|
Administrative thin client |
|
Java Persistence API (JPA) |
|