Oracle Announces WebLogic Suite

Posted by R.J. Lorimer on Jul 06, 2008 07:19 PM

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BEA,

WebLogic,

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Java EE

In a live webcast this past week, Oracle announced a number of changes in their middleware software suite. Since the acquisition of BEA Systems earlier this year, there has been some question as to how Oracle was planning to integrate the various product offerings that came with the purchase.

 The announcement details the software that encompasses Oracle Fusion Middleware, a mix of the existing Oracle software along with the various products from BEA.

In a live webcast attended by partners and customers from around the world, Oracle President Charles Phillips and Oracle Fusion Middleware Senior Vice President Thomas Kurian outlined Oracle's middleware strategy, which combines the best products from BEA and Oracle Fusion Middleware and provides continuity and investment protection for both customer bases.

One of the most notable changes from this press release is the replacement of their current Oracle Application Server product with the newly-branded Oracle WebLogic Server as the recommended application server platform. OAS 10g, their current application server offering, is built on top of Orion application server, and will be supported in parallel to the new Weblogic server platform for an unspecified period of time.

As part of the Weblogic brand, Oracle is combining the server with WebLogic Operations Control, the Coherence caching service, and JRockit JDK into a product offering titled Oracle WebLogic Suite.

In addition to their WebLogic Suite, Oracle is also now offering the WebLogic Application Grid, a horizontal-scaling platform for Java EE applications. Similar to the suite, the application grid platform combines Coherence Grid-Edition with the Real-time edition of JRockit to provide large-scale grid deployments beyond what the standard Weblogic clustering supports.

The original webcast presentation PDF is available, and there is a detailed datasheet regarding the new Oracle Fusion Middleware set of products. InfoQ will continue to track changes in the Java EE server space.

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   long live Weblogic!

   Jul 7, 2008 10:29 AM by Floyd Marinescu

   It's cool to see Oracle making Weblogic their core new appserver over Oracle10as instead of dumping it.

   Reply

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   Re: long live Weblogic!

   Jul 7, 2008 12:02 PM by Abhay Bakshi

   We have to believe - things change for better. Floyd Marinescu remained the same but he is now a founder of InfoQ, the chief editor InfoQ from what he has been earlier in his life at other locations. :))

   Reply

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   Re: long live Weblogic!

   Jul 7, 2008 4:29 PM by Cameron Purdy

   Thanks, Floyd :-)

   We have high hopes for the future of WebLogic, we are making significant investments in it today, and we are building based on its successful heritage as the most popular, widely-deployed and mature Java application server. It's truly impressive to see the amount of R&D that Oracle and BEA have invested -- and now continue to invest as a single entity -- in OSGi, data grids, POJO-based programming models, Java EE, XTP, cloud computing and other emerging technologies.

   For me personally, having started with Weblogic in 1999 (Tengah server I think it was called back then), this combination is the both the culmination of a long and interesting road, and also hopefully the start of something very special.

   Peace,

   Cameron Purdy
   Oracle Coherence: Data Grid for Java, .NET and C++

   Reply

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   Oracle 10g app server está muerto, ¡Viva WebLogic!

   Jul 8, 2008 1:44 AM by Java Gunforhire

   I'm developing an SOA solution using the Oracle SOA Suite, and from my perspective the outcome of the takeover is looking pretty good. Oracle have ditched their two weakest products: Oracle 10g app server (aka OC4J) and the Oracle ESB and replaced them with WebLogic app server & AquaLogic Service Bus.
   
   But I can't let them go to the software graveyard without commenting on how bad these products are (were). The best thing you can say about Oracle 10g app server is that it's not as bad as 9.0.2, or 9.0.3 - I worked on a project where we had to write a series of wrapper classes to get around bugs in fairly important things like calling EJBs from the web tier.
   The ESB has bugs aplenty, is low on features, and it's quite easy to create a scenario where it loses messages - hardly credible as the backbone of your SOA architecture.
   
   I have to be impressed with how Oracle has actually got anyone to buy these products - they say that you can't polish a t__d, but the number of customers for the app server and SOA Suite attest to Oracle salespeoples' t__d polishing capabilities - and skills in cross-selling. All despite totally misreading the Java landscape (JSR-227 anyone ?).
   
   So mostly the outlook is pretty good, for me anyway. (Existing WebLogic customers might not be so happy.) Oracle just have to follow up by killing off JDeveloper - which is pretty laughable as an IDE.

   Reply

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   losers in this scenario also

   Jul 8, 2008 5:28 AM by serge boulay

   so exactly what happens to the poor people who have just adopted 10g AS? What a fantastic investment for them. How many man hours were/are spent learning a product that is soon to be deprecated. I agree that Weblogic is a far better product but there are losers in this scenario also.

   Reply

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   Re: losers in this scenario also

   Jul 8, 2008 7:43 AM by peter lin

   I wouldn't think of it as looooosers. Instead of being stuck with 10g for x number years, or migrating from 10g AS to weblogic on your own, Oracle will probably provide a migration tool to make it easier. I'm just guessing on the migration tool, so I could be talking out of my rear. Having used a variety of application servers, my bias take is weblogic is better than the others. I don't work for weblogic or any of the competitors, just my bias experience.

   Reply

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   No More Standalone JRockit?

   Jul 8, 2008 1:46 PM by Tim McNerney

   It looks like from the FAQ that JRockit standalone will no longer be available. I think this is a real shame and am not sure what justification there is for this move. They aren't EOLing it, just no longer making it available, except as bundled in other Oracle products. --Tim

   Reply

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   Right decision

   Jul 8, 2008 10:48 PM by Slava Imeshev

   BEA's engineering team it the most bright and talented I've ever worked with. It is great to see that Oracle is finding use for this talent.
   
   Regards,
   
   Slava Imeshev
   Cacheonix - Affordable Data Grid

   Reply

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   Re: No More Standalone JRockit?

   Jul 14, 2008 10:51 AM by Cameron Purdy

   Tim -

   jRockit is still available stand-alone, and is still free for use, and there is an option for support.

   There is an advanced version of jRockit called jRockit Real-Time that is available as part of the WebLogic Suite and the WebLogic Application Grid.

   Peace,

   Cameron Purdy
   Oracle Coherence: Data Grid for Java, .NET and C++

   Reply

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