MEAN Stack Apps Explained for Java Developers

February 17, 2016 by Ajitesh Kumar · Leave a comment
This article represents brief description of What is MEAN Stack Web/Mobile App. Coming from Java background, I thought it to present an analogy for Java developers to get a quick understanding on MEAN Web/Mobile App. Please feel free to comment/suggest if I missed to mention one or more important points. Also, sorry for the typos.

Following are the key points described later in this article:

  • What is MEAN Web/Mobile App?
  • A Web Application Stack in General
  • Sample Web App using JEE (Spring/Hibernate) Framework
  • A MEAN Stack Web/Mobile App

 

What is MEAN Web/Mobile App?

A MEAN Stack based web/mobile app makes use of following technologies:

You may note that we are no more required to use middleware technologies such as JEE or .NET to process user request/response. Its all about Javascript. :). In following text, I shall briefly explain the skeleton of any Web application with examples and show analogy with MEAN Stack.

 

A Web Application Stack in General

A web application framework is required to fulfil some of the following key objectives:

  • One or more user interfaces for end users to interact
  • One or more web servers to handle user request/response
  • A Web framework to process user request/response
  • One or more databases to store the data

Following are key components of any web application framework in general:

  • UI
  • Web Server
  • Web application framework
  • Database

 

Sample Web App using JEE (Spring/Hibernate) Framework

In Java web application, following are key components and related technologies:

  • UI: This is taken care using HTML/CSS with JSP embedded tags to render dynamic data.
  • Web/Application Server: The web server handles user requests and sends back the response after being processed using one or more services/components. Example of such app server is Tomcat server.
  • Web Framework: There is required a web framework to process the user requests/response. This is where framework such as Spring, Struts and other popular Java web frameworks fit in.
  • Database: There are different databases that one could use. For example, MySQL, Oracle, SQL Server etc.

Following diagram represents a JEE based web app.

Java Web App Framework

Java Web App Framework

 

A MEAN Stack Web/Mobile App

A MEAN Web/Mobile app looks like following:

  • UI: This is taken care using AngularJS.
  • Web Server: This is based on NodeJS.
  • Web Framework: This is based on ExpressJS. Mongoose is used to connect to MongoDB database.
  • Database: The database is MongoDB.

Following diagram represents MEAN Stack App:

MEAN App Framework

MEAN App Framework

Ajitesh Kumar
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Ajitesh Kumar

I have been recently working in the area of Data analytics including Data Science and Machine Learning / Deep Learning. I am also passionate about different technologies including programming languages such as Java/JEE, Javascript, Python, R, Julia, etc, and technologies such as Blockchain, mobile computing, cloud-native technologies, application security, cloud computing platforms, big data, etc. I would love to connect with you on Linkedin. Check out my latest book titled as First Principles Thinking: Building winning products using first principles thinking.
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