Sun Microsystems has submitted a proposal to the Java Community Process advocating adoption of a standard that it promises will reduce development costs for Java-based web services.

The company said adoption of its Java Business Integration specification (JBI) would allow developers to integrate and code web services applications more easily, through implementation of an open-ended pluggable architecture.

JBI, effectively a development container for business integration, incorporates both industry-standard integration components and proprietary elements through the use of standardised interfaces.

Mark Bauhaus, vice president of Java Web Services for Sun, said: "This integration architecture can help enable customers to more quickly, easily and cost-effectively integrate business and legacy systems - essentially letting them integrate once and run virtually anywhere."