BEA has announced the delivery of WebLogic Platform 9.2 (Server, Portal, and Integration). Along with the announcement, BEA Kodo 4.1, BEA Workshop for WebLogic Platform 9.2 and BEA Workshop Studio 3.2.1 have also been released.
BEA SOA 360º platform appears to be an umbrella marketing brand not unlike SAP NetWeaver or Oracle Fusion in that it combines disparate elements under a single brand. This brand includes the mSA or microServiceArchtecture that unifies BEA product architectures, but also for a host of developer programs including the use of open source tools blended with closed source tools within the BEA development strategy. mSA, or microService Architecture--unifies the three primary BEA platforms, Tuxedo, WebLogic and Aqualogic through a common communication mechanism.
New feature highlights in WebLogic Server 9.2 include:
Web
- Web App libraries (deployable web apps that can be referred to by other web apps). Various JSF implemenations and JSTL were added as libraries
- Using Two-Way SSL with Generic Proxy Servlets
- Servlet Authentication Fallback Mechanism
- Future Response Model for HTTP Servlets – on for long running web requests, the response processing is decoupled from the thread that handles the incoming request, avoiding thread blocking. Deprecated Servlet Features
Commonj.timer Job Scheduler that works clustered.
A new Filtering Classloader which enables users to configure deployment descriptors to explicitly specify packages that are always loaded from the application, rather than being loaded using the system classloader.
Security
- Support for Custom XACML Roles and Policies
- Customizable Security Roles and Policies for WebLogic Server MBeans
- WebLogic Server Security for Custom MBeans
- Bulk Access Versions of Authorization, Adjudication, and Role Mapping Providers
- Policy and Role Consumer SSPI
Transactions
- Dynamic Multi Data Sources. Oracle real application clusters (RAC) installations to add and remove RAC nodes and the corresponding data sources without having to untarget and redeploy the Multi Data Source.
- LLR Support for Transaction Recovery Service Migration.
- Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Support
Messaging
- Client-Side Store-and-Forward for Reliable JMS Messaging
- Automatic Failover for JMS Message Consumers
- Unit-of-Work Message Groups
- WebLogic Store Administration Utility
- Improved Non-Persistent Messaging Performance with One-Way Message Sends
Web Services
- Implementation of the WS-SecureConversations Specification
- Callbacks
- SOAP 1.2 Support
- Web Services Invocation Using Multiple Transports
- Streaming SOAP Attachments
- Configurable Server Addresses in the Dynamic WSDL
- Web Services Testing Feature in Administration Console
- WSSecurityInfo API for Viewing Security-Related SOAP Headers
- JWS Annotation Additions and Changes
- Web Services Ant Task Changes
- Miscellaneous Web Services Changes and Additions
New feature highlights in WebLogic Portal include:
- Workshop for WebLogic built on Eclipse
- A redesigned WebLogic Portal Administration Console
- Workshop for WebLogic visual editors for the WebLogic Portal 9.2 data types and an upgrade framework for WebLogic Portal 8.1 applications.
- Content Management enhancements including a WYSIWYG editor, customizable workflows, content type inheritance, nested types, and content templates.
- Enhanced support for portal federation (books, pages, and portlets), with improvements in the ability to consume a remote portlet from the administration and development tools.
- A communities framework that provides enhanced support for building collaborative end-user-managed sites, including the out-of-the-box GroupSpace application template.
BEA Kodo 4.1 provides JDO 2.0 as well as EJB 3 Java Persistence Architecture (JPA).Additionally, in BEA Kodo 4.1, the company is basing its JPA implementation on the same packages found in the Apache OpenJPA incubator project. BEA initiated OpenJPA earlier this year when it contributed a substantial portion of its Kodo product to the open-source community under the OpenJPA name. See also InfoQ's article: OpenJPA, a real competitor to Hibernate emerging.
Marking its first use of the Eclipse Update Manager as a distribution method, BEA Workshop for WebLogic Platform 9.2 is releasing an Eclipse update to its IDE Design Views. The product builds upon its existing integration with Eclipse 3.1 and WebTools 1.0 by extending the baseline functionality into new areas such as visual Web service development and enhanced Beehive Page Flow development.
BEA is also releasing a new version of Workshop Studio. Version 3.2.1 includes the latest open-source updates of Eclipse 3.2.1, Web Tools 1.5.1 and Spring 1.3.4, as well as new tutorials and documentation to designed to help simplify common procedures.
Over the last 18 months, BEA has added support and certification of its products on the Spring Framework, moved to an Eclipse-based IDE and tooling environment with its M7 acquisition, became the first software company in the industry to provide Eclipse tools for the EJB 3.0 persistence interface, won the “Best Commercial Eclipse-Based Development Tool” award at EclipseCon, and opened up Kodo’s Java Persistence APIs via OpenJPA. BEA is also a strategic member of the Eclipse Foundation, currently holding two board seats.