Oracle will introduce Oracle Application Server 10g
Release 2 tomorrow at its OpenWorld conference, describing it as a
significant upgrade, with RFID backing as new and improvements in
Java, web services and identity management.
Thomas Kurian, an Oracle senior vice-president, said the company
planned to ship the application server and the JDeveloper 10g
Release 2 development tool in three weeks.
The application server and development tool upgrades took up a
session at the first day of the Oracle OpenWorld conference in San
Francisco on Monday. The products will be formally announced on
Wednesday, as will Oracle Application Server Standard Edition 1, a
version of the application server intended for small businesses.
Standard Edition 1 focuses on building websites and portals.
“Release 2 is a major update release for us," Kurian
said. "There are 432 features in the new release.” The company is
looking to help users build business applications in accordance
with service-oriented architectures based on componentised
applications.
Release 2 supports J2EE 1.4, including enhanced reliable
messaging via Java Message Service and web services enhancements.
J2EE 1.4 provides APIs for building web services in Java, such as
JAX RPC. The Web Services Interoperability Organization Basic
Profile is supported, as is interoperability with .net
applications.
A SOAP stack and UDDI web services registry are featured. And
a web services management gateway provides a central point to log,
trace and enforce policies across application servers from Oracle
and others. Web services functionality includes support for the Web
Services Reliable Messaging specification.
To boost deployment in compute grids, the application server
includes distributed configuration management. An improved
transaction manager provides for two-phase commit.
Release 2 of the application server also improves Oracle
Interconnect ESB, which provides messaging capabilities for systems
integration. The ESB is 40% faster than the previous iteration,
according to Kurian.
A “business event monitoring dashboard” enables users to set up
key performance indicators and tie them to specific business
events, such as whether a supplier is late. Security alerts can
also be monitored.
The new application server comes with Instant Portal
software that provides a starting point for using portals. “We give
you a portal in the box, which you can start with and customise,"
said Kurian. "It also allows a business user to be much more quick
and productive.”
Also supported is Java Specification Request 168 and Web
Services for Remote Portlets, for boosting enterprise portal
development.
Oracle has introduced “RFID edge” capabilities, providing
support for the radio-based tagging standard. And an enhanced
Oracle Forms function makes it easier to call forms from Java and
use Java in forms.
Enhanced identity management allows for synchronisation between
Oracle’s directory and products such as Microsoft Active Directory
or the iPlanet directory. Kurian said it made it easier to manage
directories across a distributed environment. Support for federated
identity enables users to create and propagate identities from one
organisation to another using SAML or Liberty Alliance
technologies.
Integration between the application server and .net has been
improved for identity purposes. “You can build web services in .net
and invoke them from our application server,” Kurian said. “You can
create users and take the Windows sign-on.”
Dynamic resource management in Release 2 allows for workload
adjustments between systems. “When you’re running multiple
applications on the application server, it knows how to adjust
workloads and give capacity on the fly to those applications that
need it, and take resources away from those that don’t,” Kurian
said.
High availability accommodates deployment downtime both planned
and unplanned, according to Kurian. Backup and recovery has been
automated across multiple nodes and hot and cold backups are
enabled. An App Server Guard provides for standby environments for
the application server and databases.
An OpenWorld attendee cited high availability as a highlight of
Kurian’s presentation. “The high-availability features really stood
out for me,” said Sergio Del Rio, chief information officer of
systems integrator Templates 4 Business. Del Rio said that
availability had previously presented a struggle. He also applauded
security enhancements but said his company had no need of RFID
support.
Release 2 also offers new ways to install and configure
application servers, enabling the cloning of portals and
improvement of capabilities to migrate systems from testing to
production. Upgrades can be fully automated.
A topology-based management function enables web severs and
application servers to be monitored from a single place.
“Topology-based management allows you to get centralised viewing
and monitoring of your application servers and databases across
your organisation,” Kurian said.
The application server also can be connected to legacy systems
such as CICS and VSAM. Oracle is highlighting integration between
the application server and Real Application Clusters as well, for
failover purposes. Application servers can automatically switch
over.
JDeveloper 10g Release 2 provides a design environment to
develop J2EE, XML and database applications. It supports code
refactoring, code templates and easier code navigation. JDeveloper
is being integrated with open-source technologies for testing.
JUnit support for Java testing is being enhanced, and Ant support
is improved.
With its development announcement Oracle is also highlighting
its Application Development Framework for using a choice of
technologies, such as Struts, JavaServer Faces and EJB. Also
supported in the framework are JBoss, BEA WebLogic and IBM
WebSphere.
Paul Krill writes for InfoWorld