Latest News from Sam Pullara

High-Performance CMP Features

Tue, 15 Oct 2002 00:00:00 EDT

This month I've decided to explore some of the more advanced performance enhancements that you can use if you are using EJB 2.0 on WebLogic. Our container-managed persistence (CMP) engine exposes several strategies for you to configure to get the most efficient - meaning least - use of your database. Field-groups allow you to specify which fields are loaded from the database together.

Using JMX

Mon, 23 Sep 2002 00:00:00 EDT

The Java Management API (JMX) has been integral to managing the WebLogic Server since WebLogic 6.0. Through this API you can search for management beans (mbeans) within the application server and query them for both configuration information and runtime monitoring information.

CMP 2.0, EJBGen, and Builder Make EJBs Easy!

Thu, 20 Jun 2002 00:00:00 EDT

EJBs have always been the best way to ensure that your applications were portable and would leverage all the optimizations of the J2EE server. Now they are also easy to build. With the release of WebLogic Platform 7.0, you can create EJBs in record time. At the center of this revolution is Container Managed Persistence 2.0, which allows WebLogic to build tools that remove the layers from EJB development.

Integration via Web Services

Mon, 20 May 2002 00:00:00 EDT

WebLogic Server 7.0 contains the most advanced, performant, and standards-compliant Web service stack of any application server. With an additional download (until the JAX-RPC specification goes final - it may by the time you see this article - see http://jcp.org/jsr/detail/101.jsp) you get a Java standards-compliant Web service stack that also passes the SOAP interoperability tests. So you might ask how easy is it to use this system to call existing Web services and to build new Web services? The answer is: almost trivial.

Migrate Early, and Often:Maintain your flexibility to upgrade when the time comes

Wed, 17 Apr 2002 00:00:00 EDT

Working at a software company and watching products evolve over the years, 'Migrate Early, and Often'is the best advice I can give someone who is trying to stay on the cutting edge of technology. Obviously, if you have an application that's in production with no problems and you aren't planning on adding any new features, then of course keep the same version of the underlying platform. However, if you're developing a new application and are currently in the process of architecting and designing, you should definitely talk with your vendor about what you can expect in upcoming releases. Although you might not target the initial phase of your project to the new release, you can ensure that you have the flexibility to upgrade when that time comes. Keeping your options open will, in the long run, give you a more stable and maintainable product. As one of my friends, Peter Seibel (now at Kenamea), said, 'Software gets better.'And I think that you can say that almost universally. Some might argue that it should be phrased, 'Software gets bigger,'but I take exception to that. This might be true in the world of desktop applications, where new releases inevitably exist only to encourage people to buy the next upgrade; in the enterprise people have support contracts that ensure the next version is available. All the critical aspects of enterprise software increase with each new release: reliability, administration, scalability, and performance. Those are the normal ones, but I'm going to add one more aspect that also gets better with age - one that WebLogic has concentrated on in our newest release: usability. That may not be part of the big four, but it's fast becoming one of the more important measures in the enterprise software world.

WebLogic Platform 7.0

Tue, 26 Mar 2002 00:00:00 EST

Development and deployment. These are the foci of the WebLogic Platform 7.0 release. Don't get me wrong, it's not like we haven't been working on the container itself, we still have J2EE 1.3 compliance and some really high ECPerf numbers. We have, though, released with the product three tools that try to simplify the development, deployment, and administration of WebLogic Server applications.

Caching

Wed, 20 Feb 2002 00:00:00 EST

Application server performance. Database performance. Hardware performance. These are numbers measured in the popular press, although in most situations they have little to do with your application's real-world performance. The number one way to increase performance, the thing that gives you the biggest boost, is caching. Caching in every tier is becoming more and more prevalent. On the front end, we have caching proxy servers like Squid and AOL.

Web Services in the World of Java

Wed, 06 Feb 2002 00:00:00 EST

THIS MONTH I'M GOING TO TALK about Web Services (capitals intended - I'll explain in a minute). Specifically, as one of the architects of BEA's SOAP/WSDL stack, I'd like to talk to you about Web Services and where they fit in with J2EE and Java in general.

Message Driven Beans

Mon, 07 Jan 2002 00:00:00 EST

Wow. That's what I have to say when I look back at where WebLogic began and where it has gone since then. When I started working at WebLogic, the only core people there were the founders, the president, an administrative assistant, and a lone sales person. Of course, back then our big moneymakers were the JDBC drivers. We always said, 'You know, in two months, Oracle/Sybase/Microsoft is going to come out with a great native database driver and we won't be able to make any money in this business. We have to start selling our server.' Fortunately for us, we're still able to sell those JDBC drivers, although they're a very small fraction of sales. WebLogic has come a long way in becoming a standards-based, fault-tolerant, scalable platform for building enterprise Java applications. Even our tag line back in those days was prophetic: 'WebLogic, Elevating Java to the Enterprise.'