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.

Figure 1. Clients provided for WebSphere Application Server
An application server being accessed by client applications running on stand-alone clients, and other types of client provided for WebSphere Application Server.
Stand-alone thin clients and resource adapter for JMS
The stand-alone thin clients are small, embeddable Java™ SE clients that you can run either on their own or, to provide different features, with one or more other stand-alone thin clients. The resource adapter for JMS is a stand-alone resource adapter that provides third party application servers with full connectivity to service integration resources running inside WebSphere Application Server.
[AIX Solaris HP-UX Linux Windows][z/OS]Java EE client
[AIX Solaris HP-UX Linux Windows][z/OS]The Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE) client is a Java EE mode of using the runtime environment of either an Application Client installation or a WebSphere Application Server installation. The Java EE client uses the Client Container in the runtime environment to simplify access to system services such as security, transactions, naming, and database access for use by Java EE client applications.
[AIX Solaris HP-UX Linux Windows][z/OS]Java thin client
[AIX Solaris HP-UX Linux Windows][z/OS]The Java thin client is a Java Platform, Standard Edition (Java SE) mode of using the runtime environment of either an Application Client installation or aWebSphere Application Server installation. The Java thin client runtime environment provides the support needed by full-function Java SE client applications for object resolution, security, Reliability Availability and Serviceability (RAS), and other services. However, the Java thin client does not support a Client Container that provides easy access to these services.
[AIX Solaris HP-UX Linux Windows]Applet client
[AIX Solaris HP-UX Linux Windows]The Applet client model has a Java applet embedded in a HyperText Markup Language (HTML) document residing on a remote client machine from the WebSphere Application Server (base). With this type of client, the user accesses an enterprise bean in the WebSphere Application Server (base) through the Java applet in the HTML document.
[AIX Solaris HP-UX Linux Windows]ActiveX to Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) Bridge (Windows only)
[AIX Solaris HP-UX Linux Windows]The ActiveX application client model uses the Java Native Interface (JNI) architecture to programmatically access the Java virtual machine (JVM) API. Therefore the JVM code exists in the same process space as the ActiveX application (Visual Basic, VBScript, or Active Server Pages (ASP) files) and remains attached to the process until that process terminates.
[AIX Solaris HP-UX Linux Windows]Pluggable Application Client for WebSphere Application Server (Windows only)
[AIX Solaris HP-UX Linux Windows]This client provides a subset of Application Client for WebSphere Application Server features. This client is supported in Windows only using a Sun JRE in a J2SE mode of operation.
Deprecated feature: The Pluggable Application Client is deprecated. It is replaced by the stand-alone thin client, IBM® Thin Client for EJB.

The following table provides a comparison of the different types of clients that are available.

Table 1. Client comparison . The first column of this table lists the attributes that are being compared, and the remaining seven columns show the comparison information for each of the different types of client 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 Pluggable Application Client (deprecated)
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 Large client footprint with many files (subset of Application Client for WebSphere Application Server
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 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 Sun
Supported Java version See Table 2
  • 1.5
  • 1.6
 Supplied IBM JRE Supplied IBM JRE Supplied IBM JRE Supplied IBM JRE 1.5+
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 No transactions, and local transactions for JMS
Easily embedded Yes No 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 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 TCP and HTTP
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 No SSL support
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 IPLA (unlimited copy but no redistribution), and ILAN (redistribution)

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.

Table 2. Supported JRE versions . The first column of this table lists the stand-alone thin clients, and the second column lists the supported JRE versions for each of the stand-alone thin clients.
Type JRE Versions
Enterprise JavaBeans thin client
  • 1.5
  • 1.6
  • 1.7
Java Message Service thin client
  • 1.5
  • 1.6
  • 1.7
Java API for XML-based RPC (JAX-RPC) thin client
  • 1.6
  • 1.7
Java API for XML-Based Web Services (JAX-WS) thin client
  • 1.6
  • 1.7
Administrative thin client
  • 1.6
  • 1.7
Java Persistence API (JPA)
  • 1.5
  • 1.6
  • 1.7