BEA hails app server upgrade
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Not to be outdone by rival Oracle, BEA Systems has unveiled version 9.0 of its WebLogic Server application server. Homing in on the theme of service-oriented architecture deployment, BEA said the product would
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(InfoWorld) - BEA Systems on Monday is launching its BEA Workshop Studio 3.3 developer tools platform, featuring Web Folder Mapping. Although the platform upgrade is considered minor by BEA, the company is highlighting Web Folder Mapping. This feature allows developers to assemble source files in a folder organization that matches the needs of a development team, not in a structure required by the server or IDE, said Bill Roth, vice president of the Workshop group at BEA. The same feature is known as "split development directory" in BEA's WebLogic Server application server. Productivity is key to version 3.3. "The simple read is that this is an update that will better allow companies who have large development staffs and are working on large code bases to be more productive," Roth said in an e-mail. Other improvements in version 3.3 include: * Inclusion of the Eclipse Web Tools Platform 1.5.2, which is a bug fix release.Â  Formerly, Web Tools Project 1.5.1 was offered. * An upgrade from the the Kodo 4.0 persistence engine to Kodo 4.1. * Support for the Spring 2.0 Java framework. * Support for opening .tld and .tag files located in Java Archive files. * Minor bug fixes and general improvements.
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OCTOBER 06, 2004  - IBM today unveiled a new version of its WebSphere Application Server software, which is designed to protect applications from server downtime and boost enterprise efforts to build a service-oriented architecture (SOA).
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The company expands its server software for creating slick interfaces for Web applications.
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BEA Systems with its upcoming Diamond application deployment platform envisions an IT person taking on the new role of âapplication configuratorâ in SOAs (service-oriented architectures).
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IBM late on Tuesday announced the  biggest update of its popular WebSphere business software in  two years, adding features such as automatically detecting and  fixing problems.
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(InfoWorld) - BEA Systems will fit its Weblogic Server Java application server with improvements geared to Web 2.0, SOA and interoperability with Microsoft's .Net platform, the company said at the BEAWorld San Francisco conference on Wednesday. WebLogic Server 10.3 also features a new modular approach in which users can selectively download only components they want. The upgrade will be offered as a technology preview this fall with general availability set for next year. The application server's Web 2.0 capabilities are enabled through enhanced support for AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) and Adobe Flex, said Blake Connell, director of product marketing for WebLogic Server. AJAX provides for a dynamic element to Web applications that is identified with Web 2.0, Connell said. Specifically, a publish-and-subscribe engine within WebLogic Server will provide live updates to AJAX and Flex clients. The engine offers a persistent connection to a rich client, Connell said. BEA this week also announced an alliance with Adobe in which evaluation of copies of WebLogic Server will be featured with Adobe LiveCycle Enterprise Suite, the server component for Flex. In the SOA realm, WebLogic Server 10.3 backs SAML (Security Assertion Markup Language) and improvements to the Java API for XML Web Services. "The big point in SOA is support for SAML 2.0, which provides Web single sign-on," Connell said. "SAML enables people to sign on securely with a Web client and then have access to other systems without having to keep re-logging in," Connell added. Java API for XML Web Services, meanwhile, is the specification used for writing Web services capabilities on top of the application server, he said. To accommodate .Net applications, WebLogic Server 10.3 will feature a JMS (Java Message Service) C# client. With this component, users who have deployed .Net systems but want to standardize on JMS as a messaging backbone can do that, Connell said. Leveraging BEA's microServices Architecture, version 10.3 allows for componentizing of WebLogic Server. For example, users could leave out the Java development kit or Enterprise JavaBeans and JMS capabilities if they do not need these, Connell said. "You save megabytes in download size," he said. Java Platform Standard Edition 6 is featured WebLogic Server 10.3, providing for better performance. "This is the underlying Java implementation upon which WebLogic Server sits on," Connell said. Also featured in version 10.3 is backing for the Spring 2.1 Java application framework and Java Persistence API for storing and retrieving application objects in a database. In other happenings at the conference Wednesday, BEA's Bruce Graham, vice president of consulting, likened the year 2007 to 1997, when now-giant companies like eBay and Amazon.com were just getting started. BEA also was in its infancy, he said. "2007 seems to me to be a watershed year," Graham said. Like 1997, young computer hackers are making lots of money and showing up on magazine covers. New companies are emerging with new business models like Wikipedia, YouTube, and Facebook, he said. "There's a wave of innovation occurring, just like 1997," Graham said. Companies now must leverage IT assets to provide a competitive advantage, said Graham. He described SOA, business process management, and enterprise social networks as three preeminent waves of technology that have arisen in response to this need. Also at the conference this week, BEA Systems said it plans to enable its enterprise service bus and portal software products to run as virtual appliances next year. The AquaLogic Service Bus and WebLogic Portal products will run directly in virtualized environments such VMWare. Under the model being deployed by BEA, enterprise applications and supporting infrastructure can be deployed independent of the underlying server and operating system. This enables SOA services to be treated as virtual appliances that can be deployed wherever needed, representing a major shift in the software industry, the company said. BEA's virtual appliance plan is expected to be extended to other components of its Enterprise 360 platform as well, as part of the company's Liquid Enterprise strategy. The virtual appliance plan is being eyed for BEA products that have a volatile workload, said Guy Churchward, BEA vice president for WebLogic Products. BEA has begun offering an instance-based pricing model as part of its virtual appliance strategy, in which the customer pays based on how many instances of software are being deployed, rather than basing pricing the number of CPUs. The company has implemented this strategy with the WebLogic Server -- Virtual Edition variant of its application server.
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BEA Systems is set to release Diablo, an SOA-based application server that is the cornerstone of the upcoming WebLogic Platform 9.0.
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InfoWorld - BEA Systems and Adobe Systems are partnering on rich Internet application development in an arrangement incorporating both SOA and Web 2.0 concepts.
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InfoWorld - BEA Systems&#39; planned next-generation application platform, called Project Genesis, will feature an open source component and accommodate scripting languages such as Ruby and Perl, BEA officials said at the BEAWorld San Francisco conference on Tuesday.
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Java package BEAWorld BEA Systems is teaming up with Adobe to help developers build and serve up rich internet applications (RIA).â¦
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WebLogic weight loss Next year will see BEA Systems' first implementation of a slimmed down application server. Codenamed 'Essex', WebLogic Server version 10.3 will launch by March 2008 - BEA said at BEAWorld this week - and marks the debut of an architecture that lets developers remove modules they don't want prior to installation.â¦
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NetEase gets a timely upgrade after early success with a new title.
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JBoss Application Server 4.0, middleware recently certified for J2EE, is ready for enterprise production deployment, according to JBoss.
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BEA Systems today unveiled an architecture and toolset designed to help companies moving toward SOA by separating out business processes from packaged applications.
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(InfoWorld) - BEA Systems and Adobe Systems are partnering on rich Internet application development in an arrangement incorporating both SOA and Web 2.0 concepts. The deal is being announced Tuesday at the BEAWorld San Francisco conference. BEA will bundle Adobe Flex Builder 2 software with the BEA Workshop Studio Java development environment. Through this bundling, developers can build cross-platform rich Internet applications that integrate with SOA and Web 2.0 infrastructure. Enterprise mashups also can result. "[The agreement] gives our developers access to the most innovative, rich Internet application platform," said Bill Roth, vice president of BEA's Workshop business unit. In the second part of the announcement, Adobe will distribute evaluation licenses of the BEA WebLogic Server Java application server with Adobe LiveCycle Enterprise Suite software for building customer engagement applications. Combining Flex Builder and Workshop Studio is intended to give developers a workflow for building applications like interactive dashboards, customer and employee self-service applications, and business-to-business systems, BEA said. Applications are deployed using the Adobe Flash Player runtime. BEA's Workshop Bundle includes Flex Builder 2, Adobe's Eclipse-based IDE, and the Adobe Flex SDK, which is slated to be released under the open-source Mozilla Public License. The bundle is to enable developers to add rich interactivity to enterprise applications. While Workshop already features an SDK and IDE, Roth insisted there was no redundancy. Both Adobe and BEA have built on the Eclipse platform. "That allows both Workshop and Flex Builder to exist in one IDE." Roth said. "Eclipse provides the basic IDE framework. Workshop and Flex fill it out." Rich Internet applications developed with Workshop and Flex can be integrated with other BEA products, such as offerings from the WebLogic and AquaLogic families. This provides enterprise benefits pertinent to Web 2.0 and SOA, BEA said. Applications can be deployed using the planned Adobe Integrate Runtime technology for extending rich Internet applications to the desktop. "The Web 2.0 angle is, I think, really where Flex is really strong in allowing a more focused user interface and allowing a richer environment," Roth said. "Web 2.0 is about collaboration," and interacting with the customer, he added. For SOA, Adobe's architecture offers the notion of presentation services as well a framework for Flex applications to integrate with standard enterprise Java applications and SOA, Roth said. BEA's endorsement of Flex does not necessarily mean the company is choosing it over the popular AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) technique for Web development. "In fact, we view both AJAX and Flex as being important rich Internet options, and our customers are looking for that," Roth said. "We found that segments of the customer base that are more developer-centric have a preference for AJAX while those who are more concerned with the interaction and have fairly significant interaction needs in terms of flexibility and creativity tend to go with Flex," especially in an enterprise context, he said. AJAX leverages HTML and JavaScript while Flex runs in the Flash Player, extends the browser, and has capabilities around graphics rendering, animation, and client code performance, said Adobe's Phil Costa, director of product management for Adobe Flex and ColdFusion. The Flex programming model focuses on data-driven applications as opposed to HTML, which was developed primarily around a documents paradigm, Costa said. Workshop bundled with Flex Builder 2 is due to be available by the end of the year with pricing starting at $899 retail. Also under the agreement, customers can deploy LiveCycle ES applications that leverage characteristics of WebLogic Server including Java Message Service to support business events, clustering and failover. Web services interoperability technologies are supported such as WS-I Basic Profile 1.1. While LiveCycle has worked with WebLogic Server before, users with this announcement will be provided with turnkey infrastructure for enterprise deployments. LiveCycle with WebLogic Server will available as a turnkey product early in 2008.
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InfoWorld - Taking another step towards gluing together heterogeneous environments, IBM is building a new version of WebSphere that will better leverage Web services to tie together a patchwork of server-based environments.