BEA upgrades app server with SOA, Web 2.0 capabilities
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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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InfoWorld - Hoping to speed acceptance of its service-oriented architecture initiative, IBM at last has rolled out a new service to help corporate users shape their projects to better fit their business goals.
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The company expands its server software for creating slick interfaces for Web applications.
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BEA Systems Inc. on Monday unveiled an all-in-one package of products that make it easier for independent software vendors to build and install web applications on BEA&#39;s Java-based platform.
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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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BEA Systems yesterday unveiled Version 9.0 of its WebLogic Server application server, code-named Diablo, with the promise of simplified development of service-oriented applications.
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Latency obvious BEA Systems is adding go faster stripes to its Java application server, with two products designed for time-critical work environments.â¦
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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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Now I see it... BEA Systems has teamed up with VMware to deliver the first instalment of a Java virtualisation strategy to rollout in 2007.â¦
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Big Blue beefs up its WebSphere 6 application server, promising better performance, reliability and simplified administration.
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(InfoWorld) - BEA Systems is planning a dynamic application infrastructure codenamed "Project Genesis," for building next-generation business applications that incorporate technologies including mashups. BEA sees a new generation of flexible, dynamic, and real-time composite applications emerging built on concepts like SOA, said Alfred Chuang, BEA Chairman, CEO, and president, during the BEAWorld conference in San Francisco on Tuesday morning.Â  "Genesis is a system that radically simplifies the way that we create, operate, and govern dynamic next-generation applications," said Chuang. Genesis is expected to be a set of products enabling the whole lifecycle of dynamic business applications, including the ability to build mashups and dynamic business infrastructure, according to the company. "The goal is the 24-hour product [development] cycle," with Genesis, said Bill Roth, vice president of the BEA Workshop business unit. Dynamic applications focus on individual needs. "Dynamic business applications are tailored to the individual, to be tailored for the person so the user doesn't need to switch from app to app to complete a task," Chuang said. The Genesis platform will feature user-based pricing and incorporate SaaS capabilities, Chuang said. The company's Workspace 360 technology serves as the development environment for Genesis. Packaged applications can no longer be the focus, according to Chuang. "We cannot innovate with packaged enterprise applications because we can't afford to work with them. They're rigid and monolithic systems," he said.Â  Chuang did not immediately provide details on when Genesis would be available. Chuang stressed the evolution of the Internet as a tool for self expression and productivity. He also touted mashups, describing them as generally Web-based applications that leverage consumer-oriented sites for external facing audiences. But mashups now are spreading to the enterprise. "Mashups are an example of how the world is changing so rapidly," with mashups available for purposes ranging from finding the 100 best fishing holes in the United States to rating dance moves, he said.Â  Following Chuang's presentation, Comcast CIO Andrew Baer touted his company's use of SOA after presenting an overview of the company's video, cable Internet and voice products. The company is building an infrastructure featuring SOA and intended to provide for business flexibility. "I want us to be in apposition where if the needs to come up with a new idea, in many, many cases from a technology perspective, we can launch that in 24 hours," Baer said. "We are firmly committed to SOA and a set of loosely coupled, coarse-grained services with all kinds of implementations underneath that," said Baer. Comcast is using BEA products, such as the company's AquaLogic Service Bus and the WebLogic Server application server. Comcast has goals such as improving its call center with a productivity portal for 20,000 customer service representatives. Also at the conference, BEA announced the first product component of its WorkSpace 360 environment with the release of BEA AquaLogic Registry Repository 3.0. The repository can provide shared metadata management and structured workflow processes. Also, the registry is designed to improve and management and governance of SOA deployments. Featured in version 3.0 are advanced workflows to automate approval-based processes, a metadata interoperability framework, an Eclipse plug-in, and built-in best practices. WorkSpace 360 has been described by BEA as a set of tools allowing for participation of different roles in an SOA lifecycle.
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(InfoWorld) - BEA Systems will ship the three products featured in its social computing suite geared for Web 2.0 on Monday. The three products introduce modes of ad hoc collaboration and participation-driven experiences, said Jay Simons, BEA director of product marketing. Additionally, they take innovations spawned on the consumer Internet and apply them to the enterprise, adding security, governance, and management, he said. With the products, BEA is looking to empower users in the workplace, the company said. All bearing the AquaLogic nameplate, the three products include: * Pages, which is a mashup builder for business users to put together simple Web applications for business situations. * Ensemble, for Web application developers to build developer-oriented mashups featuring Web resources. * Pathways, featuring social bookmarking, tagging, and the ability to form social networks in an enterprise context. In touting its new products, BEA has been able to communicate how the suite can make a business become more efficient, said analyst Frank Kenney, research director at Gartner. BEA has been citing examples involving mashups and applications, he said. "Theyâre starting to tell stories and give credible examples of how those Web 2.0 [capabilities] can make your business agile," Kenney said. But BEA has been lacking in details on how governance and control are maintained over the applications built with the products, he said. "I think that I havenât seen enough detail about the mechanics of the technology. For instance, BEA hasn't given me a message or hasn't told me about how these technologies fit into their overall SOA governance initiatives," Kenney said. A Java application server is required to use the products but not necessarily BEA's application server, Simons said. Pricing for the products individually is either $40,000 per CPU or $64 per user.
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ReadiMinds WebServices Applications Suite 2.0 consists of tools to build, integrate, enable and manage enterprise Web services applications.
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IBM Wednesday introduced a significant overhaul to its WebSphere J2EE application server, with new support for standards-based messaging protocols, better management features and enhancements to improve availability of applications, according to an IBM
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InfoWorld - BURLINGAME, CALIF.-- BEA Systems is expanding the open source Beehive initiative but still has no plans to participate in the Eclipse open source tools organization, despite the embrace of Beehive by Eclipse.
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Amidst claims that IT shops can now provision BEA WebLogic Servers in mere minutes instead of hours, Veritas today debuted version 4.0 of Opforce Enterprise Edition for Windows, Linux (Red Hat &amp; SUSE), Solaris and AIX.
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TechWeb - IBM and BEA Systems are expanding their consulting services for companies ready to build service-oriented architectures.