Thanks for your response, Lasse.
Regarding interoperability between the two platforms, there are actually a couple options, two of the newer options being Bridging and Web Services (i.e. XML-based protocol).
Bridging involves .NET Remoting between the .NET application and a Bridge, and
Java RMI between the Bridge and the
J2EE application. I have seen a couple third-party Bridge products, but I am curious whether there are any open source Bridge projects in existence that are reliable.
One of the other more common options, of course, involves Socket communication between the two platforms, when one is not concerned about object transmission, but rather streams of data, etc.
It appears that "high-traffic application", as intended by some of the articles I read, generally involves transaction rates of approximately 1000 per second. So, basically, it appears that Web Services are not intended for such high volumes - I just need to determine what the needs are for my system.
If anyone has a different understanding on this, please let me know.
Thanks.