Product Support and Resources

 

This topic includes the following sections:

• About the BEA Tuxedo Documentation

• Using the BEA Tuxedo Online Documentation. This topic includes these sections:

  • Accessing the Documentation in a Browser

  • Navigating to Information Topics from the Home Page

  • Site Map

  • PDF Document Files

  • Using the Online Search Feature

  • Learning Paths

• BEA Developer Center. This section includes these samples:

  • Accessing Unsupported Code Examples

  • Accessing Tools, Resources and Books

• BEA Professional Services

• BEA Education Services

 

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About the BEA Tuxedo Documentation

The BEA Tuxedo documentation is designed to provide you with information at various levels to help you learn the BEA Tuxedo system. You may want to read all of the documentation or choose only those topics that will give you information for your immediate requirements.

The BEA Tuxedo documentation consists of the following:

• Online information

• Context-sensitive online help for BEA Tuxedo graphical user interface (GUI)-based applications

• Printed versions of Installing the BEA Tuxedo System, BEA Tuxedo Release Notes, and this document, the Product Overview

The following sections give a brief description of each of these components.

BEA Tuxedo Online Documentation

The online documentation is provided on a documentation CD that ships with the product and via the e-docs Web site located at http://www.oracle.com/technology/documentation/index.html.

For a listing of the individual documents that are included in the online documentation, access the BEA Tuxedo Web site Home page and click on Site Map. The following Web page displays.

 

BEA Tuxedo Context-Sensitive Help

The BEA Tuxedo software includes a set of GUI-based tools designed to help you build and administer your BEA Tuxedo client and server applications. Table 3-1 lists the context-sensitive help components provided with each BEA Tuxedo software GUI.

Table 3-1 BEA Tuxedo Context-sensitive Online Help

BEA Tuxedo Help Components	Description
Using CORBA ActiveX	Provides help topics that describe how to use the Application Builder to create ActiveX views of CORBA objects in an BEA Tuxedo domain.
BEA Administration Console Online Help	Provides help topics that describe how to use the BEA Administration Console to remotely administer the BEA Tuxedo system from a Web browser.

 

BEA Tuxedo Printed Documentation

Figure 3-2 describes the printed documents that are packaged in the BEA Tuxedo product box along with the product software and online documentation CDs.

Table 3-2 Printed Documentation

Document	Description
BEA Tuxedo Release Notes	The release notes include known product limitations and workarounds and any late breaking information that could not be included in the published product documents. You should read the release notes before you install or use the BEA Tuxedo software. The document also lists supported platforms and the new product features for this release. This document is also included on the e-docs Web site (http://www.oracle.com/technology/documentation/index.html).
Installing the BEA Tuxedo System	This installation guide describes how to install the BEA Tuxedo software, how to configure your system to run the software, and how to run simple applications that verify that the software has been installed properly. This document also includes platform data sheets for each support platform and BEA Tuxedo upgrade information. This document is also included in the online documentation in HTML and PDF formats.
Product Overview	The Product Overview (this document) provides a high-level overview of the BEA Tuxedo system, the product user documentation, and other resources and includes references to more detailed information. This document is also included in the online documentation in HTML and PDF formats.

 

 

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Using the BEA Tuxedo Online Documentation

The BEA Tuxedo online documentation contains a comprehensive set of documents about the BEA Tuxedo system. This information is designed to help you:

• Understand the key functionality of the BEA Tuxedo system

• Design, develop, and deploy mission-critical client/server applications

• Manage your BEA Tuxedo domain resources using the software administration tools provided with the BEA Tuxedo system

The online documentation provides easy-to-access information in HTML format for viewing in your favorite Web browser.

Note: Netscape Navigator 4.x or Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.x or later are recommended.

To view the online documentation, you need a Web browser that supports HTML 3.0 features, including tables and frames. Using the documentation CD, you can copy the CD's contents to your machine, or leave the files on the CD. The documentation CD occupies less than 0.5 Megabytes of disk space. If you copy the CD's files to a new location, do not change the hierarchy of folders.

Accessing the Documentation in a Browser

To begin viewing the Online Documentation Home page, access BEA Tuxedo on the e-docs Web site or open the index.htm file in the documentation CD's top-level directory.

Figure 3-1 illustrates the BEA Tuxedo Online Documentation Home page. From this page you can:

• Browse through each online document

• See what's new in this release

• View a site map of all of the documents and click on a graphic to display a document

• Search the entire set of HTML-based documentation using a word or a phrase

• Get a printed copy of each of the major documents by opening and printing an Adobe Acrobat PDF file

  Note: When you print from a document PDF file, you have the option of printing the complete document or selected pages.

  Figure 3-1 BEA Tuxedo Online Documentation Home Page

  
   
   

Each major topic area is displayed with its own table of contents so that you can see at-a-glance what each document contains.

Once you access the online documentation, you can quickly browse through all of the available information.

Select a topic in the table of contents or click CD Home to return to the Home page.

The online documentation offers many options to access the documentation for the BEA Tuxedo system. The best way to use the documentation is to bring up the Home page in your browser and start exploring.

If you want a list of other resources and manuals that might be useful in understanding and working with the BEA Tuxedo system, click on Site Map on the Home page, and click on Bibliography.

Navigating to Information Topics from the Home Page

The BEA Tuxedo Online Documentation Home page provides navigation aids to help you find information relative to specific topics and user tasks. These aids are made available in the left navigation bar (navbar) and top navbar.

Left Navbar

The left navbar provides links to major information topics. To access the information for a particular topic, simply click the topic.

Top Navbar

The top navbar provides links to two categories of information. The top row of topics link to BEA Corporate-level information. The bottom row of topics link to information specific to online documentation.

 

Site Map

The site map page lists all the documents in the online information set. The documents are grouped by categories such Installation, Getting Started, and Programming.

To open a document, click on the document name.

 

PDF Document Files

The PDF Files page lists all the documents that are available in Adobe Acrobat PDF format. The documents are group by categories such as Installation, Getting Started, and Programming.

To open a PDF file, click on the document name. Once the PDF is displayed you also have the option of printing it.

 

Using the Online Search Feature

The BEA Tuxedo online documentation includes a Java search applet, a platform-independent search tool, to assist you in locating topics in the BEA Tuxedo online documentation (see Figure 3-2). The search applet enables you to search for one or more keywords and returns a list of target HTML pages.

When using the search applet, keep these rules in mind:

• Searches are not case sensitive.

• Do not use "quotes" in your query.

• When doing wildcard searches, use the asterisk (*) as a suffix wildcard character in keywords. For example, enter (without quotes) "program*" to find pages with keywords such as program, programmer, or programming.

  Figure 3-2 Sample Search Applet Page

  
   

To perform a search, follow these steps:

1. Click Search in the top navbar. The Search window is displayed (see Figure 3-2).

2. In the Search field, select the desired search category. If you accept the default, All Topics, as the search category, all documents in the online documentation will be searched. Other search categories limit the search to a specific set of documents, such as ATMI or CORBA documents. To see the search category choices, click the Search field drop-down button.

3. Enter the keyword in the Query field and click Find or press Enter on your keypad. The search results are displayed.

4. If no matches are found, reword your query and try again. If matches are listed, double-click on a matched entry; or, highlight the entry and click Show.

5. When the destination page appears, you can enter Ctrl+F to use the browser Find function to locate the keyword on the page.

Learning Paths

To help you find the information you need, Table 3-3 lists user tasks and the documentation appropriate to each.

Table 3-3 Learning Paths

If You Want to . . .	You Need . . .	In the Left Navbar on the BEA Tuxedo Home Page, Click . . .
Evaluate the product	A high-level overview of the BEA Tuxedo system.	Getting Started Interoperability
Install the software	Step-by-step procedures for installing and configuring each of the BEA Tuxedo system components.	Installation
Design or architect a system	To know (1) BEA Tuxedo system capabilities, (2) the benefits these capabilities give you, (3) how to incorporate the benefits of the BEA Tuxedo system into your design, and (4) how to integrate applications in an BEA Tuxedo environment.	Getting Started Interoperability Sample Applications Programming Reference Administration Messages
Write client or server applications	To know how to write, build, configure, and run applications.	The same topics as for design or architect.
Administer the system	To know how to configure, monitor, tune, migrate, and manage the BEA Tuxedo system.	Administration Migration Interoperability
Learn about using Jolt with BEA WebLogic Server and the BEA Tuxedo system	To know (1) how to configure and integrate BEA Jolt with BEA Tuxedo applications so that Tuxedo services are available to customers on the Internet and (2) how to use, configure, and integrate BEA Jolt to work with the BEA Tuxedo system and BEA WebLogic Server.	Jolt Documentation

 

 

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BEA Developer Center

The BEA Developer Center is an online support Web site for BEA customers. It contains unsupported code examples and tools which may assist you in developing applications for BEA software.

Accessing Unsupported Code Examples

To access the unsupported code examples, follow these steps:

1. Enter http://www.bea.com in your Web browser. The BEA corporate Web page displays.

2. Under Quicklinks, click on the Service and Support drop-down menu and select Developer Center (see Figure 3-3).

   Figure 3-3 BEA Corporate Web Page

   
    

3. Enter your username and password. The Developer Center Home Web page displays (see Figure 3-4). If you do not have password, click join and complete the registration information so as receive a username and password.

   Figure 3-4 Developer Center Web Page

   
    

4. Under Quicklinks, click on Tuxedo. The BEA Tuxedo Code, Components, Tips page is displayed.
    

Accessing Tools, Resources and Books

To access tools, resources, and books, follow these steps:

1. Enter http://www.bea.com in your Web browser. The BEA corporate Web page displays.

2. Under Quicklinks, click on the Service and Support drop-down menu and select Developer Center.

3. Enter your username and password. The Developer Center Web page displays (see Figure 3-3). If you do not have password, click join and complete the registration information so as receive a username and password.

4. Under Quicklinks, click on the Tools, Resources, Books drop-down menu and select the desired resource. The selected resource page is displayed.

 

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BEA Professional Services

BEA provides a suite of consulting services that will enable you to quickly transform your business into an e-business. BEA consultants have the deep product knowledge and experience to design, develop, and implement solutions right the first time. And we provide full knowledge transfer to your team throughout your projects so your internal developers will become proficient faster.

BEA consulting solutions are designed to help you at any stage of your process, from gathering business requirements, to legacy and packaged application integration, to application development. BEA packaged consulting solutions can provide you with predefined consulting services to help you meet your time-to-market needs for your e-business.

For a description of the BEA Professional Services offerings and contact information, follow these steps:

1. Enter http://www.bea.com in your browser. The BEA corporate Web page displays.

2. Click on the Service and Support drop-down menu and select Professional Services (see Figure 3-3). The Professional Services Web page is displayed.

 

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BEA Education Services

BEA Education Services delivers integrated, client-driven education solutions that help ensure successful use of BEA products. In today's competitive e-business driven market, there is also an increasing need for organizations to quickly and effectively acquire skills to adopt new technologies, such as the Java2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE), that are driving the next generation of distributed enterprise applications. BEA Education Services offers training in these technologies which are incorporated in the BEA WebLogic suite of products and includes the market-leading, J2EE-compliant, BEA WebLogic Server.

For more information on BEA Education Services offerings and contact information, please visit us on the web at http://www.bea.com/education