Configuring and Managing WebLogic JDBC

Introduction and Roadmap

This section describes the contents and organization of this guide—Configuring and Managing WebLogic JDBC.

Document Scope and Audience

This document is a resource for software developers and system administrators who develop and support applications that use the Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) API. It also contains information that is useful for business analysts and system architects who are evaluating WebLogic Server. The topics in this document are relevant during the evaluation, design, development, pre-production, and production phases of a software project.

This document does not address specific JDBC programming topics. For links to WebLogic Server documentation and resources for this topic, see Related Documentation.

It is assumed that the reader is familiar with J2EE and JDBC concepts. This document emphasizes the value-added features provided by WebLogic Server JDBC.

Guide to this Document

This chapter, Chapter 1, "Introduction and Roadmap," introduces the organization of this guide and lists new features in the current release.
Configuring WebLogic JDBC Resources,which explains WebLogic JDBC configuration.
Configuring JDBC Data Sources,which describes WebLogic JDBC data source configuration.
Configuring JDBC Multi Data Sources,which describes WebLogic JDBC multi data source configuration.
Using Third-Party JDBC Drivers with WebLogic Server,which describes how to use JDBC driver from other sources in your WebLogic JDBC configuration.
Monitoring WebLogic JDBC Resources,which describes how to monitor JDBC resources, gather profile information about database connection usage, and enable JDBC debugging.
Managing WebLogic JDBC Resources,which describes how to administer data sources.
Configuring JDBC Application Modules for Deployment,which describes how to package a WebLogic JDBC module with your enterprise application.
Using WebLogic Server with Oracle RAC,which describes how to configure WebLogic Server for use with Oracle Real Application Clusters.

JDBC Samples and Tutorials

In addition to this document, BEA Systems provides a variety of JDBC code samples and tutorials that show JDBC configuration and API use, and provide practical instructions on how to perform key JDBC development tasks.

Avitek Medical Records Application (MedRec) and Tutorials

MedRec is an end-to-end sample J2EE application shipped with WebLogic Server that simulates an independent, centralized medical record management system. The MedRec application provides a framework for patients, doctors, and administrators to manage patient data using a variety of different clients.

MedRec demonstrates WebLogic Server and J2EE features, and highlights BEA-recommended best practices. MedRec is included in the WebLogic Server distribution, and can be accessed from the Start menu on Windows machines. For Linux and other platforms, you can start MedRec from the WL_HOME\samples\domains\medrec directory, where WL_HOME is the top-level installation directory for WebLogic Platform.

JDBC Examples in the WebLogic Server Distribution

WebLogic Server 9.1 optionally installs API code examples in WL_HOME\samples\server\examples\src\examples, where WL_HOME is the top-level directory of your WebLogic Server installation. You can start the examples server, and obtain information about the samples and how to run them from the WebLogic Server 9.1 Start menu.

Additional JDBC Examples Available for Download

Additional API examples for download at http://codesamples.projects.dev2dev.bea.com. These examples are distributed as ZIP files that you can unzip into an existing WebLogic Server samples directory structure.

You build and run the downloadable examples in the same manner as you would an installed WebLogic Server example. See the download pages of individual examples for more information at https://codesample.projects.dev2dev.bea.com.

New and Changed JDBC Features in This Release

The following sections describe new features and changes for JDBC in WebLogic Server 9.1:

For a comprehensive listing of the new WebLogic JDBC features introduced in release 9.1, see "What's New in WebLogic Server 9.1" in Release Notes.

Note: If you are not familiar with the new features provided in version 9.0 of WebLogic Server, see the What's New in WebLogic Server 9.0 section of the WebLogic Server Release Notes.

WebLogic Type 4 JDBC Drivers

The WebLogic Type 4 JDBC drivers were updated and include:

Certification with J2SE 5.0.
Enhanced ResultSet metadata support.
Connection retry feature enhancements.
General performance improvements

For detailed information on changes to supported drivers, see WebLogic Type 4 JDBC Drivers.

Identity-Based Connection Pooling

This feature provides identity-based-connection-pooling for a data source. When an application requests a database connection, the WebLogic Server instance picks or creates a physical connection with requested DBMS identity based on a map of WebLogic user IDs and database IDs.

For more information, see Identity-based Connection Pooling.

Improved Configuration of JDBC Data Sources

The Administration Console has been improved to simplify the configuration of JDBC Data Sources:

New transaction, diagnostic, and security tabs.
Reorganization of attributes into more useful groupings.

Support for Sybase JConnect 6.0

This feature provides support for the Sybase JConnect 6.0 (JDBC 2.0) driver. This third-party JDBC driver is installed with WebLogic Server. See "Using Third-Party JDBC Drivers with WebLogic Server" in Configuring and Managing WebLogic JDBC.

MySQL Support for dbping Command-line Utility

This feature provides the ability to test a connection between a MySQL DBMS and your client machine via a JDBC driver. Syntax is:

java utils.dbping MYSQL user password DB

where DB is Host:Port/DBName

HOST defaults to 127.0.0.1
PORT defaults to 3306.
DBNAME defaults connects to the database manager but no specific database.