The application is a simple store-front shopping application, built during the early days of the Web 2.0 movement. As such, it is in major need of upgrades from both the technology and business point of view. Users interact directly with a browser-based interface and manage their cart to submit orders. This application is built using the traditional 3-Tier Architecture model, with an HTTP server, an application server, and a supporting database.
There are several components of the overall application architecture:
- Starting with the database, the application leverages two SQL-based databases running on IBM DB2.
- The application exposes its data model through an Enterprise JavaBean layer, named CustomerOrderServices. This components leverages the Java Persistence API to exposed the backend data model to calling services with minimal coding effort.
- As of the WebSphere Application Server Version 7 build, the application is using EJB 3.0 and JPA 2.0 versions of the respective capabilities.
- The next tier of the application, named CustomerOrderServicesWeb, exposes the necessary business APIs via REST-based web services. This component leverages the JAX-RS libraries for creating Java-based REST services with minimal coding effort.
- As of the WebSphere Application Server Version 7 build, the application is using JAX-RS 1.1 version of the respective capability.
- The application's user interface is exposed through the CustomerOrderServicesWeb component as well, in the form of a Dojo Toolkit-based JavaScript application. Delivering the user interface and business APIs in the same component is one major inhibitor our migration strategy will help to alleviate in the long-term.
- Finally, there is an additional integration testing component, named CustomerOrderServicesTest that is built to quickly validate an application's build and deployment to a given application server. This test component contains both JPA and JAX-RS-based tests.
Details to be added later