Modeling J2EE Applications
Purpose
In the design phase of the development process you build the conceptual model of your J2EE application on which you will base the development. This model includes identifying the basic components the application consists of, and embedding them into meaningful process flows by defining relations and action flows between them. All in all, this model is what describes the structure and behavior of your application before it is actually developed. You perform these modeling activities using the UML tools included in the SAP NetWeaver Developer Studio.
If this J2EE application is to be integrated in the Enterprise Portal Core (EPC), then you must also consider defining the corresponding portal navigation scheme using the Portal Content Administrator in this phase.
Use of the Process
This process is part of the following IT scenarios:
IT Scenario |
Scenario Variant |
Leveraging J2EE Standards for Porting and Adopting Applications |
Prerequisites
The J2EE application’s modules are imported into the SAP NetWeaver Developer Studio.
Process Flow
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1. Structure the development project into DCs and SCs (DI/AS Java)
The Development Infrastructure (DI) implements a software componentization concept that facilitates development processes and software life cycle management in large, distributed development environments. Structuring your application in accordance with this concept is a prerequisite for integrating it into the DI.
In particular, the componentization concept is implemented in the SAP NetWeaver Developer Studio by providing the Web Module, EJB Module and Enterprise Application project types in the J2EE Perspective. This structuring also fulfils the general rules of the J2EE standard that a typical J2EE application is built of servlet or JSP components in the presentation layer, and enterprise bean components in the business logic and the persistency layers. In conjunction with the overall concept, you can define dependencies between your J2EE application and other development components, for example using some utility functions provided by Java classes in a library that exists as a standalone component.
By grouping the DCs of your application into a software component (SC), you determine a larger unit delivery and deployment. You can benefit from that by integrating your components in the DTR and leverage the versioning and state management functions it provides.
2. Model the application in UML notation (DI)
The SAP NetWeaver Developer Studio integrates the market-leading UML modeling tool Borland Together in its comprehensive development toolset. You can use this tool to build the structural and functional model of your application based on the UML standard. You do the modeling in a separate perspective in the SAP NetWeaver Developer Studio called Together Modeling. In particular, you can increase productivity in this phase by using the predefined J2EE-related patterns and templates in your code. Further benefits are introduced by the quality assurance audits that can be run and identify possible flaws in the model at this early stage, as well as the bi-directional synchronization between the UML diagrams and the actual application code.
3. Model portal navigation (EPC)
By integrating your J2EE applications into the EPC, you gain in flexibility in terms of providing role-based access to back-end data with no extra coding. The EPC Content Administration comprises multiple editors and comprehensive wizards that support you through the process of defining the actions the end user can execute against your components. Using the Object-based navigation is an example of an editor that you can use for modeling the navigation between iViews implementing your J2EE components in a drag-and-drop fashion.
Result
You created the complete development model of your J2EE application. You can start the actual implementation of the application based on that model.