Simplified development

Business and IT are partnering to provide more rapid responses to meet changing customer demands, making it critical to reduce cycle times needed to introduce new services. BEA WebLogic Server 10, the world's leading application server, implements the new Java EE 5 specification for significant improvements in developer productivity.

One of the most dramatic updates involves writing sophisticated enterprise applications or services using the overhauled Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) 3.0. The new Java Persistence API (JPA) replaces entity beans and standardizes object-relational mapping, simplifying how developers map Java objects to relational databases and store these objects for later use. This is really important for many types of applications where you need to retain information such as user data or reservation details longer than just the initial user interaction with the application. It should be noted that BEA initiated an open-source community project to create an open JPA implementation – the OpenJPA Apache incubator project.

Annotations are another big step in helping developers reduce the repetitive, boilerplate code they must write. Annotations are notes that developers can embed in their code that tell various software tools or BEA WebLogic Server 10 how to process or work with it. Until now, developers had to include separate (typically XML-based) files with this information that were passed along with the application. Now, annotations reduce both complexity and the number of code lines that must be written. Deploying applications is also less of a hassle as separate deployment descriptor files are now optional with the use of annotations.

BEA WebLogic Server 10 goes beyond the Java EE 5 specifications to ease development. For instance, the BEA blended development model includes support for popular and useful open-source projects such as the Spring framework. Developers can leverage Spring to write applications and BEA provides the technical touch points within BEA WebLogic Server 10 and the included Eclipse-based BEA Workshop™ for WebLogic platform integrated development environment (IDE). In addition, BEA provides technical support for Spring on BEA WebLogic Server 10, giving developers peace of mind when using this framework. For customers, supporting popular open-source frameworks enables a broader number of developers with varying skill sets the ability to write applications and services. BEA supports other open-source development frameworks like Apache Struts and leverages the Eclipse Foundation IDE as the basis of BEA Workshop for WebLogic. The vast world of plug-ins designed for Eclipse is available to BEA WebLogic Server 10 developers, enabling them to benefit from this widely supported community effort.

New and improved Web services

Moving to Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) means developing applications as services. BEA WebLogic Server 10 includes a significant update to the key service-enabling technologies. New core Web services technologies have been implemented including the Java API for XML Web Services (JAX-WS 2.0) and Java API for XML Binding (JAXB 2.0). BEA implements JAX-WS 2.0 based on the GlassFish community project (another blended example), which provides a solid implementation supported by the Java community. JAX-WS 2.0 simplifies development of Web services by supporting important protocols such as SOAP and annotations.

While support for the new style of JAX-WS 2.0 Web services is important, BEA has also enhanced the previous JAX-RPC Web services technology so customers can migrate over time to the newer, document-centric style.

Interoperability is important when building services in support of SOA. BEA has worked directly with Microsoft to test interoperability with Windows Communication Foundation, their core Web services technology. In addition, BEA has also implemented new security-related Web services as those standards have evolved.

Operational efficiency in support of uptime

It's not enough to simplify the development of new applications and services; you must be able to run them in a highly reliable and manageable environment. For operations people, human error when making changes to running servers can cause significant damage to customer loyalty and revenue. To address this challenge, BEA WebLogic Server 10 continues its relentless pursuit of uptime. Its administration console includes features like lock-and-edit to help prevent inadvertent errors, plus a new ability to auto-record domain configuration changes in the console for playback with a single command via the BEA WebLogic Scripting Tool. This helps cut down potential errors when working on repetitive procedures.

High-availability functionality helps prevent downtime for users. BEA WebLogic Server 10 provides technology to help reduce downtime in the first place and ways to handle it effectively when it does occur. Clustering, whole-server migration, and failover across metropolitan area networks (MANs) and wide area networks (WANs) highlight these capabilities.

Also new in BEA WebLogic Server 10 are enhancements that provide automatic capabilities in the event of unplanned downtime. For example, BEA WebLogic Server 10 includes an automatic transaction recovery service, which is important to ensuring that incomplete transactions get finalized in the event of a server failure. In BEA WebLogic Server 10, this recovery service can be automatically migrated to a healthy server, therefore removing a manual procedure and providing even higher levels of recovery capabilities.

Operations teams will also appreciate improvements to the BEA WebLogic diagnostic framework when displaying diagnostic data and support for important management standards like SNMP v3. And finally, to aid in upgrading existing BEA WebLogic Server applications from prior releases (v8.1, v9.0, v9.1, v 9.2), BEA WebLogic Server 10 supports APIs from prior releases (unless previously deprecated) and offers automated domain upgrading via its domain configuration tool. BEA WebLogic Server 10 is also interoperable with these previous releases.

New "cockpit"-style diagnostic display helps you quickly understand running servers. Use built-in views or simply customize your own.