WebLogic Server Frequently Asked Questions

FAQs: WebLogic Express

Q. What is WebLogic Express?

A. BEA WebLogic Express (WLX) is a production-proven Java servlet engine designed to get you up and running on the BEA WebLogic^TM product line in a cost-effective manner. WebLogic Express allows you to quickly develop and launch dynamic Web sites and basic Web applications that do not require the full suite of application server capabilities. WebLogic Express is a good fit for projects that don't yet use advanced technologies such as EJB, JMS, and JCA, and instead favor Servlets, Java Server Pages (JSP), Java objects, RMI, and JDBC. WebLogic Express notably does not support EJB, JMS, JCA, the two-phase commit protocol for transactions, or some other features targeted at enterprise-level applications.

Q. What J2EE technologies are supported by the latest version of WebLogic Express?

A. WebLogic Express 8.1 supports Java Servlets 2.3, JSP 1.2, JDBC 2.0, JNDI 1.2.1, JTA 1.01a, JMX 1.0, and JavaMail 1.1.3.

Q. When should I upgrade from WebLogic Express to WebLogic Server?

A. WebLogic Express is a good fit for less complex applications built on Servlets, JSPs, Java objects, and simple data access. You can use RMI for client-server and client-client communication, and even build basic Web Services using these technologies.

Reasons to migrate to WebLogic Server from WebLogic Express could include the following:

Your application needs an upgrade - Perhaps you need to repartition your application layers to create a separate business logic/EJB layer to meet certain business needs or to manage architecture complexity.
You need to integrate with other applications supported with JCA adapters.
You need a messaging infrastructure (i.e., JMS) for you application.
You need some of the more advanced features that come with WebLogic Server such as two-phase commit transactions, message-driven beans, and object tier clustering and caching.

Q. Is the upgrade from WebLogic Express to WebLogic Server difficult?

A. Upgrading from WebLogic Express to WebLogic Server is actually very easy. Since WebLogic Express and WebLogic Server share the same code base, your applications will run as is - without any modifications - on WebLogic Server.

Upgrading is as easy as copying over a new WebLogic Server license file to your existing WebLogic Express installation.

Q. Does WebLogic Express support Web Services?

A. Yes, WebLogic Express is Web Services enabled. WebLogic Express offers presentation-level Web Services with the latest XML, SOAP, and JAX-RPC standards.

Q. Does WebLogic Express support Clustering?

A. Yes, WebLogic Express Premium Edition has full clustering capabilities for your mission-critical Web applications. Clustering support in Premium Edition includes clustered JDBC, in-memory replication of servlet sessions with automatic failover, and load balancing features.

Q. How do I install a new WebLogic Express license?

A. The WebLogic Express license file resides under the BEA_HOME directory of your installation. The license file contains licenses for all products of the BEA WebLogic Platform.

A. If you do not have any other Weblogic products installed, you could simply copy over the new WebLogic Express license file to the existing one. Otherwise -- and preferably -- install the new WebLogic Express license with the following steps:

Save the new license file with a name other than license.bea in the target BEA Home directory. For example, save the file as platform_license.bea. Use this file as the license_update_file in step 4 of this procedure.

Open a command shell and go to the target BEA Home directory.

If it is not already included, add the JDK to your PATH variable by entering the following commands:

On a Windows system: set PATH=BEA_HOME\jdk131_03\bin;%PATH%
On a UNIX system: PATH=BEA_HOME/jdk131_03/bin:$PATH

export PATH

Merge the license update file into your existing license by entering one of the following commands:

On a Windows system: UpdateLicense license_update_file
On a UNIX system: sh UpdateLicense.sh license_update_file.

license_update_file is the name to which you saved the license update file in step 1.

Save a copy of your updated license.bea file in a safe place outside of the BEA_Home directory or on a different machine.

Q. What is a WebLogic Express Domain?

A. For ease of administration and management, one or more WebLogic Express instances - and their associated resources - are grouped together in an administrative unit called a domain. A domain can include multiple WebLogic Express clusters and non-clustered WebLogic Express instances. A single Administration Server manages a domain.

A domain could consist of only one WebLogic Express instance. However, that sole server instance would serve as an Administration Server, because each domain must have exactly one Administration Server.

You can define multiple domains based on different system administrators' responsibilities, application boundaries, or geographical locations of servers.

Q. Can a domain include a mix of WebLogic Express and WebLogic Server instances?

A. Yes, you can have WebLogic Express and WebLogic Server instances in the same domain. The domain would be managed by a single Administratiion Server and Administration Console.

Q. What version of the Java Servlet and JSP specifications does WebLogic Express support?

A. WebLogic Express 8.0 supports Java Servlet version 2.3 and JSP version 1.2.

Q. Do I need to make any changes to my Web application currently deployed in Tomcat in order to move it to WebLogic Express?

A. Any Web application deployed in standard .WAR format, as per the Servlet specification, will deploy without code changes on WebLogic Express. You may have to define the resource and resource mappings in the WebLogic Express server if your application depends on any WebLogic Express resources.

Q. How should I use the existing BEA e-docs if I am a WebLogic Express user?

A. BEA has provided a separate eDocs page for WebLogic Express. This page provides links to most of the documentation related to WebLogic Express features, installation, programming, management, and "Getting Started" material. You will find that many of the links in the WebLogic Express documentation pages actually point to WebLogic Server documentation pages. This is because WebLogic Express shares the same code base as WebLogic Server and WebLogic Server documentation for common WebLogic Server/WebLogic Express features can be applied to WebLogic Express.

Q. Can I build Web services with WebLogic Express? If so, how?

A. Yes, you can build and deploy Web Services in WebLogic Express using Java classes. See Overview of WebLogic Web Services for instructions on building Web services for WebLogic Express. Note that in WebLogic Express you can only use Java classes to implement Web services. You cannot use EJBs or JMS.

Q. How does the Console differ between WebLogic Express and WebLogic Server?

A. There is no difference between the WebLogic Express and WebLogic Server console.

Q. Where can I download WebLogic Express for an evaluation?

A. You can download a trial version of WebLogic Express at http://commerce.bea.com/downloads/weblogic_express.jsp.

To help you with your WebLogic Express evaluation, there is a WebLogic Express evaluation guide that will guide you through the process of a WebLogic Express installation, creating and deploying a Web application on WebLogic Express, and reviewing WebLogic Express features.

Q. Can I get JDBC drivers with WebLogic Express?

A. Yes, BEA offers two JDBC drivers that come with WebLogic Express:

Type 2 native JDBC driver for Oracle.
Type 4 JDBC driver for Microsoft SQL Server.

In addition, you can use any JDBC-compliant driver with WebLogic Express. For more information on WebLogic Express and JDBC drivers, see Introduction to WebLogic JDBC.

Q. Can I use WebLogic Express as the Web tier in an n-tiered application architecture?

A. Yes, WebLogic Express will fit your Web-tier needs very well. WebLogic Express can be used as your primary Web server and also host advanced J2EE Web applications built with HTML, XML, Servlets, JSP, applets, etc. WebLogic Express has complete Web server functionality, including a built-in HTTP server.

Q. Can I use WebLogic Express as an admin server in a larger WebLogic Server cluster?

A. Yes, you can use WebLogic Express as the admin server in a larger WebLogic Server Cluster.

Q. Can I do integration with WebLogic Express?

A. WebLogic Express is intended to be use as a Java Servlet/Web application engine. It does not support the integration features that come with WebLogic Server like J2EE Connector Architecture (JCA) and WebLogic Server-Tuxedo connectors.

Q. How does WebLogic Express integrate with my IDE?

A. WebLogic Express can work with various third party modeling, development and testing tools. For information on tools support and integration kits see Tools and Utilities for WebLogic Server 8.1.

Q. When should I consider Open Source vs WebLogic Express?

A. Please see our white paper discussing the considerations involved in making a choice between WebLogic Express and Open Source Servlet Engines.

Q. Does WebLogic Express support virtual hosting?

A. WebLogic Express supports virtual hosting that allows a single WebLogic Express instance or WebLogic Express cluster to host multiple Web sites. Each logical Web server has its own host name, but all Web servers are mapped in DNS to the same cluster IP address.

When a client sends an HTTP request to the cluster address, a WebLogic Express instance is selected to serve the request. The Web server name is extracted from the HTTP request headers and is maintained on subsequent exchanges with the client so that the virtual host name remains constant from the client's perspective.

Multiple Web applications can be deployed on a WebLogic Express instance, and each Web application can be mapped to a virtual host.

Q. Does WebLogic Express work with other popular Web servers?

A. WebLogic Express can either act as your primary Web server or can be used as the servlet engine behind a Web server like Microsoft IIS, Apache HTTP Server, or Netscape Enterprise Server.

WebLogic Express includes plug-ins that enable WebLogic Express applications to communicate with these other Web servers. For information on using plugins see Using Web Server Plug-Ins With WebLogic Server.

Q. Can I use WebLogic Express as a Web server?

A. Yes, WebLogic Express has complete Web server functionality. This allows a Web browser to request pages from WebLogic Express using standard HTTP protocol. Used as a Web server, WebLogic Express supports several standard features like security, SSL, virtual hosting, Proxy configurations, load balancing, and automatic failover. For more information on WebLogic Express as Web server refer to WebLogic Server Services.

Q. Which platforms are WebLogic Express certified on?

A. For a list of certified platforms see Supported Configurations.

Q. Can I use other BEA products with WebLogic Express, like WebLogic Workshop, WebLogic Portal, or WebLogic Integration?

A. WebLogic Express can be a front-end to these other BEA WebLogic products and to the BEA WebLogic Platform.

Q. How does clustering work with WebLogic Express Premium edition?

A. WebLogic Express Premium Edition includes clustering and failover of JSPs, Servlets, RMI objects, and JDBC connections for increased reliability and availability. For more information on WebLogic Express Clustering features see Introduction to WebLogic Server Clustering.

Q. What is dev2dev Support?

A. BEA now offers dev2dev Support for WebLogic Express customers. BEA dev2dev Support provides comprehensive Web-based support for easier and more productive implementations so you can meet your project goals. Developers have access to extensive online technical information, best practices, and automated online help request services - all allowing you to tap into the expertise of BEA Support.

Dev2dev Support is an additional offering to the pre-existing Production Support offering from BEA. BEA Production Support is a more comprehensive offering, ensuring your key business processes are up and running. Combining 24x7 response for faster problem resolution with proactive services to leverage best practices, BEA Production Support improves your IT team's productivity. The BEA Production Support offering allows all members of your team access to BEA expertise through phone or Web, as well as full access to online self-help resources.

Q. Can I access CORBA applications with WebLogic Express?

A. Yes. WebLogic Express contains support for RMI over IIOP, which can be used for connectivity with CORBA applications. Because WebLogic Express does not contain support for EJB, you can only use RMI over IIOP to communicate with plain RMI objects, however.

More information on RMI over IIOP, see Overview of RMI over IIOP.

Q. What kind of applications can I build with WebLogic Express?

A. WebLogic Express is designed for building and deploying simple Web applications that do not require the full application server capabilities. WebLogic Express is a good fit for projects that use Servlets and Java Server Pages (JSPs), and simple Java applications using Java classes, RMI, and JDBC. WebLogic Express does not support EJB, JMS, JCA, advanced Web services, or other features targeted at enterprise-level applications.

Q. Are there any newsgroups for WebLogic Express?

A. You can access the BEA newsgroups for your particular area of interest at http://www.bea.com/support/newsgroup.shtml.

Q. How do I start developing on WebLogic Express?

A. The best place to start is with the "Getting Started" section of WebLogic Express.

There is also a WebLogic Express evaluation guide and toolkit that you can download. The guide helps you to get started quickly with WebLogic Express installation and Web application programming with a self paced tutorial.

Q. Where can I take classes on Java development?

A. Information can be found at http://www.bea.com/education/index.shtml.

Q. Why does a JMS error message appear when I start WebLogic Express?

A. The Domain Wizard adds JMS tags when it creates a new domain, and when this domain is used to start the server, the JMS tags are noted, and the error message is displayed. If you have not specified any JMS resources in your domain, you can ignore this error message and continue to run the server.