I've been waiting to blog this for a long time now, and finally got the all - clear from the folks at Brightline. What these guys have done is wrap industry standard J2EE in an easy to run install program, and a deployment mechanism for WAR and EAR files that's a piece of cake to manage for any Domino admin. They've made it easy and cheap to install, manage, and deploy your first servlets and jsp's for Domino.

In short, they've provided the missing link -- the bridge that lets us old "tree-huggers" start adding some performance through the selective use of this new fangled j2ee stuff where it makes the most sense. Imagine a classic Domino application with J2EE features added in just where they're need for performance or transactions? Sound powerful to you? It does to me.

This is NOT Garnet revisited. To start with, the Brightline guys let you install and manage a Tomcat/JBoss implementation and deploy to it. That's right. Tomcat & JBoss. Surely the Java community cannot object to that pair. But that's not the end. Brightline is working closely with IBM so that you'll soon have the option of deploying to Websphere environments just as easily -- by dropping a packaged application right into a Notes document. Done. Down the road, why not Portlets? Why not any other "Workplace Application" (whatever that means)?

The message to take home from this is that if you're a Domino shop starting to look at J2EE, their automatic deployment of JBoss & Tomcat makes sense right away. Its also great for a sandbox environment to hone your skills or proof out a solution. If, on the other hand, you're in a Domino shop within an enterprise that has already bought into IBM's Websphere Application Server then you're probably under a lot of pressure to start using that. Fine, the Brightline product should soon be able to let you deploy to your company's production WAS environment as well -- taking full advantage of the change control and authorizations you need. It is after all, Notes.

Is it ready for primetime? Not quite yet. Its fair to say there is still some code left to write and some fit and finish to put on this thing. That said, the core product is working just fine, and of course the important part -- the J2EE server is already a well known and fully supported product so you're not buying into a buggy 1.0 release that will fail on production applications. As long as Brightline's deployment model works well enough to get the application out there on the J2EE server, the rest is tried and true technology.

By the way, Brightline is a sponsor at this year's LotusSphere in Orlando. Don't miss it.

Does it sound like I've bought into this already? Well, if you don't think so yet let me give you a little more information. I've met with the guys at Brightline a couple of times now, spending several hours each time talking strategy, market position, technology, and future. As a result, I've committed to making every possible effort to bringing my NCT Search product out with a 3.0 version that runs as a J2EE application on their deployment model. By LotusSphere.

How's that for fully bought in? At LotusSphere 2004, with any luck at all you'll see NCT Search 3.0 running as a multi-threaded J2EE application on demo consoles in Brightline's booth. I plan to be if not THE first, then ONE OF the first "certified" applications for Brightline.

Now, how does that sound for a guy who only barely knows Java? Guess I'd better get working. LOL.