http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13222_01/wls/docs81/jdbc/oracle_rac.html

WebLogic Platform ISV Edition

The WebLogic Platform ISV Edition is a new product offering for Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) who want to build value-added solutions as a way of jumpstarting their service-oriented architecture (SOA) initiatives. The WebLogic Platform ISV Edition provides a set of WebLogic Platform components selected to help them accomplish this goal: ISVs with a current WebLogic Platform ISV Edition license are entitled to use WebLogic Server, WebLogic Workshop, the WebLogic Portal UI framework, and WebLogic Server Process Edition functionality.

For a complete list of included components, see "WebLogic Platform Components Included in ISV Edition" in "Developing Applications" in the WebLogic Platform ISV Partners' Guide at the following URL:

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13196_01/platform/docs81/isv/develop.html

The WebLogic Platform ISV Edition is intended for use with ISV applications; it is not intended for custom application development by ISV customers.

Note: The WebLogic Platform ISV Edition is delivered with the BEA WebLogic Platform product, which is available from the BEA Downloads site:  http://commerce.bea.com/showallproducts.jsp

ISV partners with a current agreement to distribute a value-added solution with the WebLogic Platform ISV Edition software receive the ability to generate an ISV redistribution license. ISVs include this license with the WebLogic Platform software that they, in turn, distribute to their customers for use with the value-added solution, in accordance with the Channel License Agreement (CLA) with BEA.

For more information about generating the ISV redistribution license, and distributing the license and WebLogic Platform ISV Edition software, see "Distributing WebLogic Platform" in the WebLogic Platform ISV Partners' Guide at the following URL:

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13196_01/platform/docs81/isv/distrib.html

WebLogic Server Enhancements

The enhancements added to WebLogic Server in SP4 include the following:

• Significantly improved JMS JDBC store performance—SQL operations are batched more efficiently than in past releases. As a result, the JDBC store now reserves two JDBC connections from the configured communication pool, rather than one.
• Support for MySQL database—WebLogic Server 8.1 SP4 supports the MySQL 4.0.x database and Connector/J JDBC driver 3.0.x. For more information, see "Supported Database Configurations" in Supported Configurations for WebLogic Platform 8.1:

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13196_01/platform/suppconfigs/configs81/81_over/supported_db.html

• Messaging Bridge Assistant—The Administration Console now offers a "wizard"-style tool that greatly simplifies the job of configuring the messaging bridge.
• Support for SPNEGO (Simple and Protected GSS-API Negotiation Mechanism)—SPNEGO is a mechanism that allows a user logged in to a Windows 2000/2003 Active Directory domain to use his or her Active Directory credentials to be authenticated on WebLogic Server. This mechanism allows for HTTP-based cross-platform authentication.

With this SP4 capability, WebLogic Server 8.1 can now enable single sign-on to Web applications from Windows Integrated Authentication clients.

For details about the 8.1 SP4 release of WebLogic Server, see "What's New in WebLogic Server 8.1 SP4" in "WebLogic Server 8.1 Features and Changes" in the BEA WebLogic Server and WebLogic Express Release Notes at the following URL:

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13222_01/wls/docs81/notes/new.html

WebLogic Workshop Enhancements

The enhancements added to WebLogic Workshop in SP4 include the following:

• Significantly improved build performance
• New IDE options, in the form of checkboxes on IDE panels, for choosing between:
• Performing an ant clean function ("Clean Application") before executing an ant build function ("Build Application"), and executing an ant build without first performing an ant clean function.
• Turning on or off the pre-compiling of JSPs for each Web Project

For details about the 8.1 SP4 release of WebLogic Workshop, see "Summary of Changes in SP4" in the WebLogic Workshop Release Notes at the following URL:

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13226_01/workshop/docs81/relnotes/relnotes.html

WebLogic Integration Enhancements

The WebLogic Integration 8.1 Service Pack 4 release adds several performance and feature enhancements, including the following:

• Synchronous to Asynchronous Business Processes—You can now enable synchronous clients to interact with business processes that have asynchronous interactions with resources. For example, a synchronous WebLogic Workshop client, such as a JSP or Portal page that uses a Java control, may need to invoke a business process and then block. While the client is blocking, the business process may perform asynchronous activities, such as enqueueing a JMS message and waiting for a JMS receive, and then return the response to the client, after which the client unblocks. To learn more, see "Synchronous Clients for Asynchronous Business Processes" in "Building Synchronous and Asynchronous Business Processes" in the "Guide to Building Business Processes," which is available at the following URL:

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13226_01/workshop/docs81/doc/en/integration/wfguide/wfguideSync.html

• New Controls:
• Dynamic Transformation—Provides a business process with the ability to dynamically select and invoke a query during run time. Specifically, it allows you to select a particular XQuery, XSLT, or MFL file at run time. To learn more, see "Dynamic Transformation Control" in "Using Integration Controls" at the following URL:

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13226_01/workshop/docs81/doc/en/integration/controls/controlsDynamicTrans.html

• XML MetaData Cache—This control allows you to retrieve XML documents from the XML MetaData cache. To learn more, see "XML MetaData Cache" in "Using Integration Controls" at the following URL:

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13226_01/workshop/docs81/doc/en/integration/controls/controlsXMLMetadata.html

• Worklist Performance Improvements:
• Improved performance for Worklist operations
• Optimization of Task creation and assignment
• New searching and sorting capabilities, including a new interface for querying Worklist tasks. This interface allows client applications, especially user interface (UI) applications, to retrieve only a subset of records. This feature improves performance and scalability.

To learn more, see "Using the Worklist" and "Worklist Administration" in "Managing WebLogic Integration Solutions" at the following URLs:

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13214_01/wli/docs81/worklist/index.html

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13214_01/wli/docs81/manage/worklist.html

• Data Transformation Improvements—Message Format Language (MFL) enhancements improve performance significantly when transforming non-XML data.
• File Control Enhancements—A new option allows you to set a delimiter to specify the size of a record. This option is available in the Insert Control - File dialog box by selecting the Read file content including delimiter string check box. To learn more see "Creating a New File Control" in Using Integration Controls, which is located at the following URL:

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13226_01/workshop/docs81/doc/en/integration/controls/controlsFileCreate.html

• RDBMS Event Generator—This new event generator uses triggers to detect changes to a database table for added, deleted, or updated rows and then publishes the results to Message Broker channels. You can also use the RDBMS Event Generator to run custom queries on a database table and publish the results to Message Broker channels. For more information, see the RDBMS Event Generator User Guide, which is available at the following URL:

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13214_01/wli/docs81/rdbmseg/intro.html

• Web Service Features in Business Processes—This document covers some of the unique WebLogic Integration Web service features. To learn more, see "Web Service Features in Business Processes" in the "Annotations Reference" at the following URL:

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13226_01/workshop/docs81/doc/en/integration/javadoc-tag/jpd/webservicefeatures.html

• New Deployment Documentation—Access to deployment information is more readily available from the BEA WebLogic Integration 8.1 Service Pack 4 home page. See the "Deployment" section of this page, which is available at the following URL:

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13214_01/wli/docs81/index.html

• New Solution Samples—These samples provide working code plus build and configuration scripts that demonstrate best practices in implementing various application scenarios. The samples provide generalized solution architectures that are tuned for performance and scalability. To learn more see "Solution Samples" at the following URL:

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13214_01/wli/docs81/sol_samples/index.html

For more information about the 8.1 SP4 release of WebLogic Integration, see the WebLogic Integration Release Notes at the following URL:

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13214_01/wli/docs81/relnotes/index.html

WebLogic Portal Enhancements

The enhancements to WebLogic Portal in SP4 include the following:

• Performance improvements in Portal Services:
• Enhancements to provide optimization for entitlement role calculations.
• Enhancements to optimize content searches against the BEA repository. The degree of improvement depends on the type of search and the complexity of the expression.
• A new advanced query window lets users build advanced content search expressions for Content Selectors, Placeholders, Campaigns, and JSP tags that provide content searching.
• Web Services for Remote Portlets (WSRP) improvements:
• Network and memory overhead have been reduced through elimination of network I/O for multiple WSRP portlets that are produced and consumed in the same server.
• Intelligent handling of file uploads from the client browser to a remote portlet reduce memory requirements and enhance the ability to upload very large files.
• WSRP enabling can be performed on a per-portlet basis.
• A new timeout attribute improves WSRP forked portlet rendering.
• New interfaces allow propagation of custom data from Consumers to Producers.
• Portal Framework improvements
• Control tree optimization allows partial generation of the UIControl Tree where appropriate; performance improvements are substantial with large portals.
• More robust control tree state management improves scalability and performance in a clustered environment.
• Reduced overhead with Portal Preferences and Portlet Event/Event Handlers using a new lightweight UIControlData object.
• Reduced memory requirements for Portal customization—User customizations are now internally optimized. As a result, the memory requirements for customization have been significantly reduced since SP3.
• A standardized Inter-Portlet Communication (IPC) package is now provided for all portlet types (JSP, JPF, Struts, and WSRP).
• A new portal management option adds flexibility when creating a desktop from a portal template; database resources are preserved but the markup is replaced with the template version. This option allows the addition of backing files to pages and books, images, and presentation attributes, without losing end-user customization.
• An event-handler programming style is now supported.
• Content management improvements—New filesystem repositories allow you to store your binary content in a filesystem and access it using the Virtual Content Repository. Typically, this strategy increases performance at two stages: when you retrieve data within your portal; and when you bulkload large amounts of data (and associated metadata) to a repository database within the Virtual Content Repository.
• Tools improvements—The new Look and Feel Editor allows you to manipulate components in the WebLogic Portal hierarchy. It also offers a WYSIWYG capability for editing styles, colors, and fonts.
• New documentation:
• New Product Demo Video
• Performance Tuning Guide
• Designing Portals for Optimal Performance ("Best Practices" white paper)
• Interaction Management Guide, including "Setting Up Content," "Content Selectors," "Placeholders," "Campaigns," and "Personalization in a Portal"
• User Management Guide, including "Anonymous Tracked users," "UUP," "Delegated Administration Overview," and "Visitor Entitlements Overview"
• WSRP Guide, including "Data Transfer," "Local Proxy," "Working with Remote Portlets," and "Establishing Interportlet Communications with Remote Portlets"
• Interportlet Communication Guide
• Portal User Interface Framework Guide
• WebLogic Workshop help system documentation for Look and Feel Editor, WSRP support, and Content Queries and Expressions
• New Exposed APIs in Javadoc

For details about the 8.1 SP4 release of WebLogic Portal, see the WebLogic Portal Release Notes at the following URL:

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13218_01/wlp/docs81/relnotes/relnotes.html

WebLogic JRockit 1.4.2 SDK Enhancements

The enhancements added to the WebLogic JRockit 1.4.2 SDK included in WebLogic Platform 8.1 SP4 include the following:

• Upgrade from 1.4.2_04 to 1.4.2_05
• Improved tools for detecting memory leaks, including on-demand memory leak detection, offered by the Administration Console

For details about the WebLogic JRockit 1.4.2 SDK, see "New Features in WebLogic JRockit SDK" in Introduction to WebLogic JRockit 1.4.2 SDK at the following URL:

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13188_01/jrockit/docs142/intro/newftrs.html

SDK Support Changes

The WebLogic Platform 8.1 SP4 software supports the following Java 2 SDKs:

• Sun Java 2 SDK 1.4.2_05
• BEA WebLogic JRockit 1.4.2_05 SDK

If you are upgrading a domain from SP3 to SP4, the script in that domain that sets the JAVA_HOME variable needs to be modified to point to the new SDK that has been installed. This script is located in the domain's root directory. Depending on the type of domain you are upgrading, this variable is set in either the setDomainEnv or startWebLogic script.

To update the value of the JAVA_HOME variable, set it to the directory containing either the Sun or JRockit 1.4.2 directory as appropriate. For example:

set JAVA_HOME=C:\bea\jrockit81sp4_142_05

If you are installing SP4 as an upgrade to a previous 8.1 release, it is also recommended that you update your application startup scripts and silent configuration scripts to reference the new Sun or JRockit SDK directory.

For a complete list of Java SDKs for each hardware and operating system combination supported in WebLogic Platform 8.1 SP4, see "Summary of Supported Operating System Configurations, by Release Number" in "WebLogic Platform 8.1 Supported Configurations" in Supported Configurations for WebLogic Platform 8.1 at the following URL:

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13196_01/platform/suppconfigs/configs81/81_over/overview.html

New WebLogic Platform Deployment Guide

A new document, Deploying WebLogic Platform Applications, provides comprehensive "how-to" information for the deployment tasks required to build, configure, and promote a Platform application from a development environment to a production environment. This document focuses on how to set up and deploy Platform applications in an enterprise production environment using scripts and other automation techniques.

Deploying WebLogic Platform Applications is available at:

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13196_01/platform/docs81/deploy/index.html

WebLogic Platform 8.1 Service Pack 3

BEA WebLogic Platform 8.1 Service Pack 3 (SP3) offers updates for all WebLogic Platform 8.1 components (WebLogic Server, WebLogic Workshop, WebLogic Integration, WebLogic Portal, and WebLogic JRockit). BEA WebLogic Platform 8.1 SP3 is the second full service pack for WebLogic Platform 8.1.

WebLogic Platform 8.1 SP3 can be used to update all WebLogic Platform 8.1 components.

Service Pack 3 includes the following enhancements and changes:

• WebLogic Server Process Edition
• Scale-Limited Production Licenses
• WebLogic Server Enhancements
• WebLogic Workshop Enhancements
• WebLogic Integration Enhancements
• WebLogic Portal Enhancements
• WebLogic JRockit 1.4.2 SDK Enhancements
• Configuration Wizard Enhancements
• Upgrade Installer Enhancements
• JDBC Changes in Configuration Templates
• SDK Support Changes
• 128-Bit Encryption Provided By Default
• Updates to Supported Configurations

WebLogic Server Process Edition

WebLogic Server Process Edition is a new product offering that provides a new, unified solution for developing process-based applications that run in the WebLogic Server environment. You can use WebLogic Server Process Edition to build and execute process-based applications without having to purchase a full WebLogic Integration license.

WebLogic Server Process Edition includes the following components:

• WebLogic Server Premium Edition—Enables full support for WebLogic Server functionality, including the core Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) features and WebLogic Workshop Web applications, Web services, and controls. WebLogic Server Premium Edition provides premium clustering, caching, and messaging capabilities.
• The Business Process Management (BPM) functionality of WebLogic Integration—Allows a user to model and execute business processes that span multiple internal systems, external resources, and users, including trading partners. These business processes can orchestrate the execution of business logic and the exchange of business documents among such systems and users in a loosely coupled fashion.

The following table provides links to topics that provide more details about WebLogic Server Process Edition, including installation and licensing information.

Scale-Limited Production Licenses

When you install WebLogic Platform 8.1 Service Pack 3 or later, two non-expiring license files are installed on your system: a license for development (license.bea) and a license for scale-limited production use (license_scale_limited.bea). The scale-limited license enables you to run a single WebLogic Server instance with a server capacity limited to approximately 3 percent of the full capacity of a production server.

If you wish to deploy applications in scale-limited mode, it is recommended that you develop with the development license file, then install the scale-limited license file prior to scale-limited testing and deployment.

Scale-limited licenses are used with the following product offerings:

• WebLogic Workshop Free Edition

Enables the following:

• Development use of WebLogic Platform using the development license file installed with the WebLogic Platform software.
• Scale-limited personal and non-commercial use of WebLogic Platform using the scale-limited license file.
• WebLogic Workshop Professional Edition

Enables development use of WebLogic Platform, as with Free Edition, and adds commercial scale-limited usage rights and support. When you purchase this product, BEA supplies customer-specific developer and scale-limited licenses.

For more information about using the scale-limited licenses, see "About WebLogic Platform Licenses" in Installing BEA WebLogic Platform at the following URL:

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13196_01/platform/docs81/install/license.html

For information about purchasing WebLogic Workshop Professional Edition, visit the following Web site:

http://dev2dev.bea.com

Note: The way to obtain the scale-limited license has changed from SP2 to SP3. If you are using WebLogic Platform 8.1 SP2, and do not plan to upgrade to SP3 but want to install and use a scale-limited license, see "Downloading and Installing the Scale-Limited Licenses in SP2" at the following URL:

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13196_01/platform/docs81/sp_notes/sp_notes.html#scale_limited_license

WebLogic Server Enhancements

The enhancements added to WebLogic Server in SP3 include the following:

• New Web Services features, including the following:
• Implementation of the Final 1.0 OASIS Web Services Security Specification
• HTTPBindingInfo API for SSL socket sharing to programmatically enable socket sharing from within your SSL Web Services client application
• New attribute for the wsdl2Service Ant task to generate a skeleton implementation class
• New attribute for the servicegen and source2wsdd Ant tasks to ignore the Authorization header in SOAP requests
• New classes added to WebLogic XML Digital Signature API to digitally sign and validate SOAP messages.
• New timestamp method added to the weblogic.xml.security.wsse.Security API, addTimestamp(), to add a timestamp to the security element of the SOAP request when invoking a secure non-WebLogic Web Service.
• The following new JDBC features and changes:
• Deprecation of the WebLogic jDriver for Oracle.
• Support for the Oracle 10g JDBC thin driver.
• Updates to the WebLogic Type 4 JDBC drivers.
• New ability to assign multiple JNDI names to a single Data Source or Tx Data Source.
• New ability to use the PinnedToThread JDBC connection pool property to increase performance.
• New JDBC MultiPool failover enhancements.
• New JDBC connection pool testing enhancements.
• New XA transactions troubleshooting capabilities.
• New XA resource transaction timeout value.
• New SQL statement timeout enhancements for pooled JDBC connections.
• Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV) support for WebLogic Server proxy plug-in.
• New security features.
• New WebLogic Tuxedo Connection (WTC) features.

For details about the WebLogic Server 8.1 SP3 release, see "What's New in WebLogic Server 8.1 SP3" in "WebLogic Server 8.1 Features and Changes" in the BEA WebLogic Server and WebLogic Express Release Notes at the following URL:

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13222_01/wls/docs81/notes/new.html

WebLogic Workshop Enhancements

The enhancements added to WebLogic Workshop in SP3 include the following:

• Enhanced help viewer

The help viewer includes several feature and performance enhancements in SP3, including bookmarking and topic navigation improvements.

• Online help content hosted at BEA by default

In SP3 the content for the WebLogic Workshop help topics is hosted at BEA. By default, when you display help, content is downloaded over the Internet to your help viewer. If you are working offline, or do not have a connection to the BEA server hosting the help content, you can change the default behavior in the IDE to display local help files.

• IBM Rational ClearCase software configuration management (SCM) integration

In SP3, IBM Rational ClearCase SCM has been added to Workshop's source control framework and is fully integrated with the Workshop IDE. The set of integrated ClearCase SCM tools includes ClearCase, ClearCase MultiSite, and ClearCase LT versions V2003, V2002, and V4.2.

• Dynamic JNDI name look-up capability added to EJB control
• XQuery's external-variable bindings available in XMLBeans

For details about the WebLogic Workshop 8.1 SP3 release, see "Summary of Changes in SP3" in the WebLogic Workshop Release Notes at the following URL:

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13226_01/workshop/docs81/relnotes/relnotes.html

WebLogic Integration Enhancements

The enhancements added to WebLogic Integration in SP3 include the following:

• Support for complex types and local elements in business processes and in the mapper.
• Volatile conversations, which allow you to use stateful business processes that use computer memory rather than a database, are supported for business processes.
• Several new mapper features, including:
• Usability improvements
• Improved link rendering and functionality on links in the mapper
• Support for adding complex conditional expressions to transformations
• Support for adding if-then-else expressions to transformations
• Performance and architectural changes in the Workshop IDE for building business processes, including:
• Improved support for Java variables
• Improved condition builders
• Improved two-way editing
• New HTTP control and event generator. The HTTP control encapsulates prepackaged logic that you can, via Workshop, conveniently incorporate into WebLogic Integration applications. Using this control simplifies the task of creating code that handles and processes HTTP requests and responses. The HTTP event generator publishes HTTP messages to the Message Broker.
• New MQSeries control and event generator. The MQSeries control is functionally equivalent to the 8.1 MQ Series Adapter. The MQSeries event generator provides a high performance option of publishing MQSeries messages to the Message Broker.
• Performance improvements in WebLogic Integration Tracking and Archiving.
• Parent-child process monitoring now supported in the WebLogic Integration Administration Console.
• Context-sensitive online help now available for business processes in the IDE and for the mapper.

For details about the WebLogic Integration 8.1 SP3 release, see the WebLogic Integration Release Notes at the following URL:

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13214_01/wli/docs81/relnotes/index.html

WebLogic Portal Enhancements

The enhancements added to WebLogic Portal in SP3 include the following:

• New Content Management services, such as check-in/check-out, versioning, and approval of content stored in a BEA-compatible content management system.
• Management support for multiple authentication providers.

WebLogic Portal now supports the use of multiple authentication providers for the management of users, groups, personalization, Delegated Administration, and visitor entitlements directly from the WebLogic Administration Portal.

• Web Services for Remote Portals (WSRP) support.

WSRP is a Web services standard that allows you to "plug-and-play" visual, user-facing web services with portals or other intermediary web applications. It allows you to create portlets that can either provide content to other portlets or consume content from other sources, even those far removed from your enterprise.

WSRP is available from dev2dev as a downloadable add-on for WebLogic Portal 8.1 SP2 installations. In SP3, WSRP is included with the WebLogic Portal software.

• New branding capability in the WebLogic Administration Portal.
• New Java controls for exposing rules engine capabilities for application developers.

Note: If you are upgrading to WebLogic Portal 8.1 SP3 from SP2, you need to run an upgrade script to be able to use some of these new features, such as the new Content Management features and WSRP. This script, which modifies the RDBMS configured with WebLogic Portal, also makes other modifications that are required for SP3. For more information, see "Upgrading to Service Pack 3" in the WebLogic Portal 8.1 Upgrade Guide at http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13218_01/wlp/docs81/upgrade/servicepack2to3.html.

For details about the WebLogic Portal 8.1 SP3 release, see the WebLogic Portal Release Notes at the following URL:

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13218_01/wlp/docs81/relnotes/index.html

WebLogic JRockit 1.4.2 SDK Enhancements

The enhancements added to the WebLogic JRockit 1.4.2 SDK included in WebLogic Platform 8.1 SP3 include the following:

• Improved startup and runtime performance
• Reduced heap size
• Dynamic garbage collection and heap resizing

WebLogic JRockit 1.4.2 SDK includes:

• A unified garbage collector that allows you to select a dynamic garbage collector based solely upon one of two priorities: memory throughput or duration of pause time caused by collection.
• Automatic heap resizing behavior that is enhanced to allow more dynamic and adaptive heap usage.
• Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL) support on Linux

NPTL is a thread library option available for use instead of LinuxThreads with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3.0. NPTL provides significant performance improvement for multi-threading Linux applications.

For details about the WebLogic JRockit 1.4.2 SDK, see "New Features in WebLogic JRockit SDK" in Introduction to WebLogic JRockit 1.4.2 SDK at the following URL:

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13188_01/jrockit/docs142/intro/newftrs.html

Configuration Wizard Enhancements

In 8.1 SP3, the Configuration Wizard enables you to:

• Configure the Administration Server when creating a configuration template using the Configuration Template Builder.
• Specify whether a connection pool supports local transactions.
• Use silent mode configuration to do the following:
• Create and edit any valid configuration object and its child elements, except custom security objects.
• Set AllowCasualUpdate to specify whether you want to allow a domain to be updated without adding an extension template.

The silent configuration script samples have been enhanced to include additional documentation. A description of a new WebLogic Portal-based sample has also been added to the documentation.

Upgrade Installer Enhancements

SP3 adds the ability to use the upgrade installer in silent mode. When you upgrade your installation in silent mode, you define the settings in an XML file that you create prior to beginning the upgrade installation. During the silent upgrade installation process, the installation program reads the settings for your configuration from the XML file. The installation program does not display any configuration options during the installation process. Silent-mode upgrade installation works on both Windows and UNIX systems.

For information, see "Using the Upgrade Installer in Silent Mode" in "Installing Service Packs and Rolling Patches" in Installing BEA WebLogic Platform at the following URL:

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13196_01/platform/docs81/install/update.html

JDBC Changes in Configuration Templates

In 8.1 SP3, changes have been made to the default JDBC configuration settings in several of the prepackaged configuration templates. Many of these changes make creating a domain using a database with an XA driver simpler, as described in "How Do I: Create a Domain Using a Database with an XA Driver?" in "How Do I . . . ?" in Creating WebLogic Configurations Using the Configuration Wizard at the following URL:

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13196_01/platform/docs81/confgwiz/examples.html

The default JDBC configuration changes include the following:

• Two new connection pools:
• cgJMSPool-nonXA—provided by WebLogic Workshop and used by WebLogic Workshop, WebLogic Portal, WebLogic Integration and WebLogic Platform domains for a WebLogic JMS persistent file or database store.
• portalPool—provided by WebLogic Portal and used in WebLogic Portal and WebLogic Platform domains for portal framework, services, and content management. The addition of this new pool contributes to the simplification of creating a domain using a database with an XA driver.
• Multiple JNDI names assigned to a single data source or Tx Data Source.

Note that this change impacts the Data Source and Tx Data Source configuration in the Basic WebLogic Platform Domain template and Basic WebLogic Portal Domain template, as follows:

• The new p13nDataSource Data Source supports personalization, data synchronization, and sequence identifiers. This functionality was previously supported by the p13n_dataSyncDataSource and p13n_sequencerDataSource Data Sources; these Data Sources are no longer defined.
• The new cgDataSource-nonXA Tx Data Source supports JMS control state management and third-party Compoze portlets.This functionality was previously supported by the cgDataSource and ebusinessPool Data Sources, respectively. The ebusinessPool Data Source is no longer defined.
• The portalFrameworkPool Tx Data Source now supports portal framework, services, and Content Management. The services and Content Management functionality were previously supported by the contentDataSource and commercePool Data Sources; these Data Sources are no longer defined.
• Removal of the WLAI_DataSource Tx Data Source from the Basic WebLogic Platform Domain template. This Tx Data Source is required only for the out-of-the-box WebLogic Integration samples domain, but was also included in the Basic WebLogic Platform Domain template prior to SP3.

For complete details about each Configuration Wizard domain template, see "Template Reference" in Creating WebLogic Configurations Using the Configuration Wizard at the following URL:

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13196_01/platform/docs81/confgwiz/tempref.html

For description of the default JDBC configuration for SP3, see "Default JDBC Configurations for WebLogic Platform" at the following URL:

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13196_01/platform/docs81/db_mgmt/default_JDBC_configs.html

SDK Support Changes

In SP3, WebLogic Platform 8.1 supports JVMs at the Sun J2SE 1.4.2 level only. (JVMs at the 1.4.1 level and earlier are no longer supported.) The WebLogic Platform 8.1 SP3 software includes the following Java 2 SDKs:

• Sun Java 2 SDK 1.4.2_04
• BEA WebLogic JRockit SDK 1.4.2_04

If you are upgrading a domain from SP2 to SP3, the script in that domain that sets the JAVA_HOME variable needs to be modified to point to the new SDK that has been installed. This script is located in the domain's root directory. Depending on the type of domain you are upgrading, this variable is set in either the setDomainEnv or startWebLogic script.

To update the value of the JAVA_HOME variable, set it to the directory containing either the Sun or JRockit 1.4.2 directory as appropriate. For example:

set JAVA_HOME=C:\bea\jrockit81sp3_142_04

If you are installing SP3 as an upgrade to a previous 8.1 release, it is also recommended that you update your application startup scripts and silent configuration scripts to reference the new Sun or JRockit SDK directory.

Also note that as of SP3, for Windows and Linux operating systems, WebLogic JRockit is the default JVM for development as well production domains that are created via the Configuration Wizard.

For a complete list of Java SDKs for each hardware and operating system combination supported in WebLogic Platform 8.1 SP3, see "Summary of Supported Operating System Configurations, by Release Number" in "WebLogic Platform 8.1 Supported Configurations" in Supported Configurations for WebLogic Platform 8.1 at the following URL:

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13196_01/platform/suppconfigs/configs81/81_over/overview.html

For details about the Sun Java 2 SDK 1.4.2, see "Enhancements and Changes in Java 2 SDK v1.4.2" at the following URL:

http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/changes.html

128-Bit Encryption Provided By Default

Prior to SP3, in order to enable 128-bit encryption, the WebLogic Platform installer program always checked the encryption license in the license.bea file. The 128-bit encryption would then be enabled only if the appropriate encryption license was installed.

In SP3, 128-bit encryption is enabled by default for all WebLogic Platform installations. The installer no longer performs this check on the license.bea file.

Note: If you are installing SP2 or earlier releases of WebLogic Platform 8.1, the installer program must find the 128-bit encryption license in the license.bea file before the installer enables 128-bit encryption for the WebLogic Platform installation. For more information, see "Enabling 128-Bit Encryption in SP2 or Earlier" in Important Usage Notes for Previous Releases of WebLogic Platform 8.1 at the following URL:

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13196_01/platform/docs81/sp_notes/sp_notes.html#128bit-encryption

Updates to Supported Configurations

In SP2, using WebLogic Platform with the Sun Java 2 1.4.2 SDK, the Oracle 10g driver, or SQL Server, Sybase, or DB2 databases required the installation of a patch. In SP3, support for configurations using these products is now fully provided in the WebLogic Platform 8.1 software.

Note: PointBase Server is an all-Java DBMS product included in the WebLogic Platform distribution solely for evaluation purposes, either in the form of custom trial applications or through packaged sample applications provided with WebLogic Platform. Non-evaluation development or other use of the PointBase Server requires that a separate PointBase Server license be obtained by the end user directly from DataMirror. PointBase is not supported for production use with WebLogic Workshop, WebLogic Integration, or WebLogic Portal. For more information about contacting DataMirror, see http://www.pointbase.com/.

See Supported Configurations for WebLogic Platform 8.1, at the following URL, for complete details about changes introduced in SP3 related to supported operating systems, hardware, databases and database drivers, SDKs, Web servers, and more.

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13196_01/platform/suppconfigs/configs81/81_over/index.html

WebLogic Platform 8.1 Service Pack 2

BEA WebLogic Platform 8.1 Service Pack 2 (SP2) offers service pack updates for all WebLogic Platform 8.1 components (WebLogic Server, WebLogic Workshop, WebLogic Integration, WebLogic Portal and WebLogic JRockit), as well as the following:

• New Database Support
• New Development License Option
• Improved Support for Packaging and Delivering for Custom Java Controls
• Performance Improvements During Iterative Development
• Crystal Reports for WebLogic Workshop
• Crystal Reports for WebLogic Workshop
• Page Flow Changes
• WebLogic Portal Enhancements

WebLogic Platform 8.1 SP2 can be used to update all WebLogic Platform 8.1 components.

New Database Support

In addition to being supported on Oracle and PointBase databases, WebLogic Platform 8.1 SP2 is now supported on Sybase, Microsoft SQL Server, and DB2.

Note:WebLogic Integration does not support all these databases and the driver configurations for them.

For complete details about WebLogic Platform database support, see "Supported Database Configurations" in Supported Configurations for WebLogic Platform 8.1 at the following URL:

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13196_01/platform/suppconfigs/configs81/81_over/overview.html

New Development License Option

SP2 provides a new type of license: a non-expiring development license. This license, provided free of charge, enables you to run WebLogic Platform on a single server machine. It supports unlimited connections from a maximum of five IP addresses.

For more information about license types and how to install them, see "Installing and Updating WebLogic Platform License Files" in Installing BEA WebLogic Platform at the following URL:

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13196_01/platform/docs81/install/license.html

WebLogic Workshop Enhancements

WebLogic Workshop provides the following enhancements in SP2:

Improved Support for Packaging and Delivering for Custom Java Controls

In SP2 WebLogic Workshop facilitates your job of making custom Java controls available to end users:

• When you finish creating a custom control, you can create a ZIP archive of all the files for it, including sample code and online documentation, with a simple click of the mouse.
• You can make your controls visible and available to end users without requiring them to download the entire set of control files until the controls are needed. This capability provides two advantages: it allows for a relatively small footprint on end-user machines, and it gives you the flexibility needed to keep your custom controls up to date, as end users download only the latest versions.

The BEA dev2dev Web site provides a page on which BEA partners can post their custom controls. End users can reach this Web site directly from the Workshop Help menu. Once there, they can easily browse libraries of available controls, and download only the ones they need.

For more information about the latest features in custom Java controls, see "Building Custom Java Controls," in the WebLogic Workshop Help, at the following URL:

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13226_01/workshop/docs81/doc/en/workshop/guide/controls/navBuildingYourOwnControl.html

Performance Improvements During Iterative Development

Performance improvements in WebLogic Workshop's iterative application development features result in quicker build times. For details, see "Developing Applications with WebLogic Workshop," in the WebLogic Workshop Help, at the following URL:

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13226_01/workshop/docs81/doc/en/workshop/guide/navDevGuide.html

Crystal Reports for WebLogic Workshop

WebLogic Platform 8.1 SP2 introduces Crystal Reports for BEA WebLogic Workshop. This extension to WebLogic Workshop integrates Crystal Decisions' Java report processing and rendering capabilities with the development environment for Java Server pages provided by WebLogic Workshop. It allows you to quickly and easily add Crystal report-viewing functionality to your J2EE applications, minimizing the hand coding of data-connectivity and presentation formatting.

For more information, see "Crystal Reports for BEA WebLogic Workshop," in the WebLogic Workshop Help, at the following URL:

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13226_01/workshop/docs81/doc/en/partners/crystal/index.html

Page Flow Changes

• The supported Struts version changed from Struts 1.1 Release Candidate 1 (RC1), to the released version, Struts 1.1. For more information, see Interoperating with Struts and Page Flows.
• In @jpf:forward annotations, the return-to="action" attribute was renamed as return-to="previousAction", to clarify the purpose of this attribute. After installing SP2 or later, when you access an existing page flow in the IDE, WebLogic Workshop prompts you about the deprecated return-to="action" attributes. If you select the Yes button, the update is made for you automatically.
• In @jpf:forward annotations, the return-to="page" attribute was renamed as return-to="previousPage", to clarify the purpose of this attribute. After installing SP2 or later releases, when you access each existing page flow in the IDE, WebLogic Workshop prompts you to about the deprecated return-to="page" attributes. If you select the Yes button, the update is made for you automatically.
• In @jpf:forward annotations, SP2 and later releases add support for the return-to="currentPage" attribute. For information about the @jpf:forward annotation, see @jpf:forward Annotation.
• SP2 and later releases support a more flexible forward validation process. Instead of using an @jpf:action annotation with an attribute such as validation-error-page="formPage.jsp", S P2 and later releases provide a new annotation: @jpf:validation-error-forward. For information, see @jpf:validation-error-forward Annotation and Validating User Input.
• After installing SP2 and later releases, WebLogic Workshop changes any "return-to-page: IDs" and "return-to-action: IDs" entries in the @jpf:view-properties XML to "return-to: IDs". This change happens automatically the first time you open an existing page flow controller class file in the IDE.
• The first time you access a pre-SP2 web project that uses page flows, WebLogic Workshop prompts you to move each page flow's WEB-INF/jpf-struts-config-*.xml file to a new, recommended location:

  WEB-INF/.pageflow-struts-generated/jpf-struts-config-*.xml

  This recommended change was designed to help you understand that these jpf-struts-config-*.xml XML files are generated files, and therefore do not need to be maintained in a source file management system along with your application's source files. However, you have the option of entering No in response to the prompt. You may want to delay the migration, for example, if currently you do maintain these generated XML files in a source file management system.

• Several NetUI tags were added in SP2:
  • <netui:bindingUpdateErrors> Tag
  • <netui:rewriteName> Tag
  • <netui:rewriteURL> Tag
  • <netui:scriptContainer> Tag
  • <netui-data:callMethod> Tag
  • <netui-data:declarePageInput> Tag
• The DynamicSubappActionServlet class has been deprecated since SP2. The new class that is used and specified in the web.xml is:

  <!-- Standard Action Servlet Configuration (with debugging) -->
<servlet>
<servlet-name>action</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>com.bea.wlw.netui.pageflow.PageFlowActionServlet</servlet-class>
.
.
.


  While you may update this line in any existing web.xml that uses page flows, it is not required for SP2.

• In the 8.1 release, if the data set that the <netui:data:repeater> rendered was empty, the header and footer were always rendered anyway. Starting in SP2, when the data set is null, the <netui-data:repeater> skips rendering the header, item, and footer. If you need the header and footer rendered even in cases where the data set is null, you can place those tags outside of the repeater on your JSP.

  Consider the case where we had the <netui-data:repeaterHeader>, <netui-data:repeaterItem>, and <netui-data:repeaterFooter> tags within a <netui-data:repeater> tag set. For example:
  

  <netui-data:repeater dataSource="{pageFlow.stringArray}">
  <netui-data:repeaterHeader>
       <ol>
    </netui-data:repeaterHeader>
    <netui-data:repeaterItem>
       <li><netui:label value="{container.item}"/></li>
    </netui-data:repeaterItem>
    <netui-data:repeaterFooter>
       </ol>
  </netui-data:repeaterFooter>
</netui-data:repeater>


  If you always want the header and footer to be rendered in the JSP, you can move them outside of the repeater. For example:

  <ol>
  <netui-data:repeater dataSource="{pageFlow.stringArray}">
    <li><netui:label value="{container.item}"/></li>
  </netui-data:repeater>
</ol>

WebLogic Integration Enhancements

WebLogic Integration adds several performance and feature enhancements, including the following:

• Synchronous start of Message Broker subscribers

  WebLogic Integration supports the ability to start a business process as the result of receiving a synchronous message from a Message Broker channel. A synchronous subscription start causes the subscribed business process to run in the same transaction as the publisher. For more information, see "Subscription Start (Synchronous)," in the WebLogic Workshop Help, at the following URL:

  http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13226_01/workshop/docs81/doc/en/integration/wfguide/wfguideStartSyncSub.html

• JPD proxy

  WebLogic Integration now provides a JPD proxy as a means of allowing messages to be sent to a business process from external Java clients over RMI. For more information, see "Calling Business Processes," in the WebLogic Workshop Help, at the following URL:

  http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13226_01/workshop/docs81/doc/en/integration/howdoI/howJpdProxy.html

• RosettaNet Certification

  WebLogic Integration 8.1 Service Pack 2 has passed RosettaNet-certified testing for compliance with the following RosettaNet standards:

  • PIP3A4 V02.02.00
  • PIP3B2 V01.01.00

  "Tutorial: Building RosettaNet Solutions" in Tutorials for Trading Partner Integration has been updated to reflect this certification. The tutorial contains implementation examples for PIP3A4 and PIP3B2 that show how these PIPs initiate a Notification of Failure using PIP0A1. The tutorial is available at the following URL:

  http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13214_01/wli/docs81/tptutorial/rosettanet.html

For more information about the WebLogic Integration 8.1 SP2 release, see the WebLogic Integration Release Notes at the following URL:

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13214_01/wli/docs81/relnotes/index.html

WebLogic Portal Enhancements

WebLogic Portal adds the following enhancements for SP2:

• Java Specification Request (JSR) 168 Support in WebLogic Workshop and WebLogic Portal

  Full JSR 168 support in the Workshop and Portal run-time framework. More information about JSR 168 is available at the following URL:

  http://www.jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=168

• Additional delegated administration capabilities for portal and user management

  Enhanced delegated administration control over portal resources and user management functions. This enhanced functionality simplifies the list of available resources when editing resources such as roles, pages, books, and desktops. This allows the segregation of user management and portal resources within a Web application.

• Content sample to support the create, update, and delete capabilities

  The enhanced Content Directory Portlet augments existing read capabilities: portal visitors can now create, update, and delete content and hierarchy nodes.

• Look and Feel Manager in Workshop

  • Enables editing of Look and Feel name, description, path to skin, and path to skeleton.

  • Enables creation of new Look and Feel by pointing to existing skins and skeletons.

• Use of portlet categories in portal administration tools

  Added support for portlet categories when placing portlets on pages.

• Use of portlet categories in Visitor Tools

  Added support for portlet categories when placing portlets on pages.

• Accessibility enhancements in Portal Workshop Extensions and Administration Portal

  Improved device-independent (also known as mouseless) navigation in Workshop and WebLogic Administration Portal, freeing users from the requirement to use a mouse. Also improved interaction with assistive technologies.

• Simplified addition of Visitor Tools to a portal desktop

  • Added BEA Visitor Tools to the portal project template.

  • Created a new shell, with implicit support for linking to visitor tools, for the portal project template.

• Content sample to honor delegated administration rights

  The enhanced Content Directory Portlet controls access to the content hierarchy by enforcing delegated administration capabilities.

• Support for multiple Authentication providers

  WebLogic Portal can now authenticate users against more than one Authentication provider.

For complete details about the WebLogic Portal enhancements added for SP2, see the WebLogic Portal Release Notes at the following URL:

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13218_01/wlp/docs81/relnotes/index.html

WebLogic Platform 8.1

BEA WebLogic Platform 8.1 introduces major enhancements focused on providing a single environment for the development of WebLogic Platform applications, and simplifying the integration of WebLogic applications with other enterprise IT resources and business processes. For more information about these enhancements see:

• WebLogic Workshop Enhancements
• WebLogic Integration Enhancements
• WebLogic Portal Enhancements
• WebLogic Server Enhancements
• WebLogic JRockit Enhancements
• WebLogic Platform Cross-Component Enhancements
• Convergence Between e-docs and dev2dev

WebLogic Workshop Enhancements

WebLogic Workshop 8.1 offers many enhancements, including:

• Unified development framework—WebLogic Workshop now provides a unified development framework for Platform applications, including the ability to develop Web Services applications, Web applications, custom controls, business processes, and portals using a common Integrated Development Environment (IDE) and run-time framework.
• Web Services—Web Services enhancements include reliable messaging, WS-Security support, XMLBeans for manipulating XML data in Java and a Visual XQuery Tool.
• Web Applications—WebLogic Workshop now enables the development of Web Applications, by providing JSP/HTML designers and enabling the construction of page flows controlling navigation, data, and state management.
• Controls—Easy-to-use building blocks for connecting:
• Business applications, such as CRM and ERP
• Enterprise resources, such as databases, Web services, Enterprise Java Beans (EJBs), and even mainframes

Controls are triggered through standard Java code when an application must connect to another application or data source in order to complete a business process.

WebLogic Workshop includes more than a dozen pre-packaged controls, such as the Database Control, the EJB Control, and the Web Service Appview Control. It provides tools that you can use to create your own controls. Finally, it supports various external controls that you can import and use, such as the following:

• Attachmate^® myEXTRA!^TM Smart Connector, a tool that programmatically integrates legacy business processes with your new application by capturing them as Mainframe Integration Controls
• Confluent Instrumentation Control (CIC), a tool that enables you to connect a plug-in called Confluent CORE for BEA to your WebLogic Workshop installation. CORE for BEA is a Web services management solution that enables you to extend the capabilities of the Workshop IDE.
• Tuxedo Control, a tool for using WebLogic Workshop to create Web services or Java applications built on Tuxedo services. The control uses WebLogic Tuxedo Connector to access Tuxedo services from the WebLogic environment.
• EJBGen Plug-in—The Workshop IDE now enables developers to create or edit EJBs using a graphical design tool and then build all the necessary file artifacts to support those EJBs—in a single step! Choose the best method for you: create your EJB by importing it from a database table or by importing an existing EJB jar file. The EJBGen Plug-in eliminates the need for manual synchronization of local and remote interfaces and deployment descriptors spread across multiple source files for EJBs. Instead, it offers two convenient views in which to define your EJBs:
• The Design View shows a conceptual view of the EJBs, simplifying complex tasks, such as defining relations and finders.
• The Source View shows the EJBGen source code, allowing you to implement your logic and define all the descriptors supported by the WebLogic Server EJB engine by using annotations.
• Portals—WebLogic Workshop now enables the development of WebLogic Portal applications, including integration of Workshop-developed applications and other Web applications for rendering in portals with full WebLogic Portal functionality.
• Integration—WebLogic Workshop now supports the development of WebLogic Integration business processes within the IDE, using a graphical business process editor with numerous new features, including use of controls for access to external resources, native support of Web Services, and a new XML-XML transformation editor.

For details, see the WebLogic Workshop 8.1 documentation at:

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13226_01/workshop/docs81/index.html

WebLogic Integration Enhancements

WebLogic Integration 8.1 offers many enhancements, including:

• Business Process Management—WebLogic Integration business processes can now be developed in the WebLogic Workshop Integrated Development Environment (IDE) using the two-way visual/source development environment to create business processes using a simplified process language.
• Worklist—WebLogic Integration delivers rapid access to integration with business users through the Worklist system. The Worklist system supports capabilities for managing users, groups, and roles, and for managing the routing of tasks to the people in an enterprise. It enables people to collaborate in the various tasks associated with business processes, including assigning tasks, tracking the status of tasks, handling approvals, and so on. Integral to the flow of work are actions such as receiving, approving, modifying, and routing documents. The documents that often accompany work activities provide the background required for people to complete tasks, which are the central component of all Worklist systems.
• Trading Partner Integration:
• Protocol support—Support for ebXML Message Service 2.0.
• Message Tracking—New ability to track on-the-wire messages to and from trading partners, link the messages to the BPM process instance, and archive the messages in the archive database. All these tasks can be performed through a Web-based administrative console that is integrated with the WebLogic Integration Administration Console.
• Improved security—Support for XML digital signatures, authentication (of messages and trading partners), authorization (of transport and business process), security-specific identity, secure audit log Service Provider Interface (SPI) (for all supported protocols), secure timestamp service and SPI (for all supported protocols), certificate verification SPI, non-repudiation (for all trading partner integration protocols), and key management.
• Trading Partner Management (TPM)—Improvements include support for extensible trading partner profiles, simplified access to TPM information, certification management, the ability to import and export TPM information, programmatically, on a running server, and integration of the TPM in existing profile stores, such as LDAP or RDBMS.
• Data transformation—A new data transformation mapper within the WebLogic Workshop IDE enables the definition of XQuery-based transformations using XML, non-XML, and Java data to provide an any-to-any mapping capability. XSL-based transformations continue to be supported in the run time.
• Message Broker—A new channel-based publish and subscribe message broker enables anonymous publish/subscribe communication between business processes and from external sources via the use of Event Generators.
• Web Services —Native Web Services support is provided for WebLogic Integration, including exposing business processes as Web Services, and invocation of Web Services from business processes using the Service control.
• Application Integration—Full integration of third-party applications via adapters configured through the Application Integration Design Console, and exposed to business processes via the application view control and the Message Broker.
• Administration—A new Web-based management console for all WebLogic Integration management tasks: business process, message broker, application integration, trading partner integration, and worklist.
• Security—WebLogic Integration supports the new WebLogic Server security model supported by WebLogic Server 7.0 and 8.1.

For details, see the WebLogic Integration 8.1 documentation at:

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13214_01/wli/docs81/index.html

WebLogic Portal Enhancements

WebLogic Portal 8.1 offers many enhancements, including:

• Flexible, Powerful, Unified Framework—WebLogic Portal 8.1 provides a flexible, unified framework for building portals that provides employees, partners, and customers with an integrated view of applications, information, and business processes. WebLogic Portal's unified framework, lifecycle management tools, and business services let companies and organizations quickly build and assemble portals that combine functionality and resources into customizable, audience-specific interfaces, while enforcing business policies, business processes, and security requirements. WebLogic Portal framework enhancements include:
• Multiple Portals and Desktops per Web Application—The new portal architecture lets you create multiple portals in each Web application (portal Web project). In addition, each portal can contain multiple desktops, which gives you flexibility when providing customized content and applications to multiple audiences with reusable portal resources.
• XML-based Portal Infrastructure—BEA extends WebLogic Workshop to support rapid portal development with graphical tools that construct XML files dynamically behind the scenes. Each desktop and portlet created by a developer is stored in a single XML file that contains all the configuration information necessary for rendering. In addition, developers can create and use look-and-feel resources (skins, skeletons, shells, and layouts) that can be used interchangeably in portals.
• Integrated Development Environment—WebLogic Portal extends WebLogic Workshop to allow easy surfacing of Web services, Java Page Flows, business process applications, and personalization functionality in portals that can be flexibly assembled for different audiences.
• Multichannel Support—WebLogic Portal includes a multichannel framework for fast, flexible development of portals for mobile devices. You can develop portals that simultaneously serve multiple devices.
• Portal Security—WebLogic Portal extends the underlying WebLogic Server role and security policy architecture. Portal administrators can use flexible, configurable policies to set up delegated administration for individual areas and tasks related to of administration, and to set entitlements that control end-user access to portal desktops and content.
• Lifecycle Management—WebLogic Portal's flexible, powerful, unified framework allows portal developers and administrators to build, assemble, and customize portals quickly and efficiently in seamless iterations. Enhancements to lifecycle management tools include:
• WebLogic Workshop Portal Extensions—The integrated portal development environment provided with WebLogic Workshop Platform Edition lets portal developers quickly create both portal resources and functionality for managing interactions.
• WebLogic Administration Portal—Portal administrators can manage all aspects of portal administration with the WebLogic Administration portal. Portal administrators can use existing portal resources and functionality to assemble new portals for multiple audiences and to modify interaction management functionality. They can also create new portal resources, such as books, pages, and portlets. In addition, they can manage users and groups, set up administrator and end-user access privileges with delegated administration and entitlements, manage content in the Virtual Content Repository, and configure server settings.
• WebLogic Portal Visitor Tools—With the WebLogic Portal Visitor Tools, end users can customize their portal desktops by adding and rearranging books, pages, and portlets, and by changing the look-and-feel and header and footer (shell) used by their desktop.
• Business Services—WebLogic Portal provides the following business service enhancements for easy development of powerful portals:
• Content Management—BEA's Virtual Content Repository lets you combine and manage multiple BEA-compatible content management systems in a single interface. Any content in the Virtual Content Repository can be used in your portals. WebLogic Portal also provides a content repository and a reusable My Content portlet for viewing and searching for content stored in the Virtual Content Repository.
• Interaction Management—WebLogic Portal provides enhanced, integrated tools in WebLogic Workshop and the WebLogic Administration Portal for adding personalization and campaigns to your portal applications and tracking user behavior in your portals.
• Search—The reusable Portal Search portlet provides configurable enterprise-wide search functionality. With WebLogic Portal's built-in search functionality you can build search indexes and perform file system, ODBC, and HTTP searches.
• Collaboration—The reusable collaboration portlets (My Mail, My Task List, My Calendar, My Contacts, and Discussion Forums) let you provide collaboration tools in your portals.
• My Yahoo!^® Enterprise Edition portlets—My Yahoo! Enterprise Edition lets you blend more than 100 familiar My Yahoo! modules into your portals seamlessly. Dynamic modules draw on Yahoo!'s 2,700 content sources from 25 regions in 13 languages. They include content and tools, such as Headline News, Company News, Stock Portfolios, Market Summary, Weather, Sports, Maps, Travel, Notepad, Calendar, Package Tracker, and much more.
• Java Controls—Pre-built Java Controls let portal developers quickly add Java code to portal applications for functions such as creating and authenticating users, and managing property sets.

For details, see the WebLogic Portal 8.1 documentation at:

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13218_01/wlp/docs81/index.html

WebLogic Server Enhancements

Note: WebLogic Platform 8.1 includes, and is supported on, WebLogic Server 8.1 Service Pack 1.

WebLogic Server 8.1 offers many enhancements, including the following:

• Improved deployment functionality—Includes features such as new application lifecycle events and faster J2EE module deployment.
• Easier-to-use administration—Delivered through features such as the improved WebLogic Server Administration Console, which offers a simplified navigation tree, reorganized configuration tabs, improved feedback and exception handling, new inline help, deployment assistants that help you deploy J2EE modules, and JDBC assistants that help you configure JDBC connection pools.
• Greater security—Available from features such as improved support for keystores, SSL configuration, and the Sun Java Cryptography Extension package.
• New functionality for application components—Offered for a wide range of components and services, including EJBs, J2EE connectors, jCOM packets, JDBC, JTA, and JMS.
• Advanced functionality in Web applications—Available from features such as the ability to call one servlet from inside another servlet (by allowing access to WEB-INF on forward/include).
• Extended functionality for Web services—Includes features such as WS-Security support for transport-independent security, and reliable SOAP messaging, a framework that allows an application running in one WebLogic Server instance to invoke another WebLogic Server instance asynchronously and reliably.
• Additional WebLogic Tuxedo Connector features—Includes new functionality for both programming, such as an asynchronous version of tpacall(), and security administration, such as a new feature that gives users a choice of three APPKEY generators to access Tuxedo services.
• New tools for developers—Easy-to-use tools, available for the first time, include a new appc compiler and improvements to the WebLogic Builder tool. For descriptions of other new features, see WebLogic Workshop Enhancements.

For a complete and detailed list, see the BEA WebLogic Server and WebLogic Express Release Notes for 8.1 at:

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13222_01/wls/docs81/notes/index.html

WebLogic JRockit Enhancements

Note: WebLogic Platform 8.1 includes, and is supported on, WebLogic JRockit 8.1 Service Pack 1.

WebLogic JRockit 8.1 delivers the following improvements over WebLogic JRockit 7.0:

• Faster startup time for server applications
• JRockit Monitoring and Management API exposed via WebLogic Server Console
• Support for JVM tools:
• Support for JVMDI—The JVM Debugger Interface (JVMDI) is a low-level debugging interface used by debuggers and other programming tools to inspect the state and to control the execution of applications running in the WebLogic JRockit JVM.
• Support for JVMPI—The JVM Profiler Interface (JVMPI) allows you to use third-party profiling tools with WebLogic JRockit JVM.

For more information about these tools, see "Profiling and Debugging with WebLogic JRockit" in WebLogic JRockit Migration Guide at:

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13188_01/jrockit/docs81/portblty/jvmtools.html

For usage tips, see SDK Selection in the System Configuration Notes and Best Practices section.

For details about WebLogic JRockit 8.1, see the BEA WebLogic JRockit 8.1 SDK Release Notes at:

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13188_01/jrockit/docs81/relnotes/relnotes.html

WebLogic Platform Cross-Component Enhancements

WebLogic Platform 8.1 offers many enhancements available across Platform components, including:

• Configuration Wizard—Simplifies off-line configuration of domains containing WebLogic Platform components, including enhancements for configuration of servers, machines, clustering, JDBC, JMS, and security configuration. For more information about this feature, see:

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13196_01/platform/docs81/confgwiz/index.html

• Template Builder—Enables the construction of configuration and extension templates used by the Configuration Wizard. For more information about this feature, see:

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13196_01/platform/docs81/confgwiz/index.html

• End-to-End WebLogic Platform Tour—Provides a hands-on walk-through of a WebLogic Platform example developed with WebLogic Workshop, including new portal, Web application, Java control, and business process functionality. For more information about this feature, see:

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13196_01/platform/docs81/tour/index.html

• Unified Development Environment—The WebLogic Workshop Integrated Development Environment (IDE) and run-time framework now support development and deployment of Platform-wide applications, including Web services, Web applications, custom controls, business processes, and portals. For more information about this feature, see:

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13226_01/workshop/docs81/doc/en/core/index.html

• Installation—The WebLogic Platform installer now supports integrated installation of the WebLogic JRockit SDK with other WebLogic Platform components. For more information about this feature, see:

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13196_01/platform/docs81/install/index.html

Convergence Between e-docs and dev2dev

The e-docs documentation Web site is now more closely integrated with the BEA dev2dev developer Web site. This convergence between documentation and developer resources gives you a comprehensive technical resource center.