Introduction and Roadmap

The following sections describe the contents and organization of this guide—Programming Stand-alone Clients:

Document Scope and Audience

This document is a resource for developers who want to create stand-alone client applications that inter-operate with WebLogic Server®.

This document is relevant to the design and development phases of a software project. The document also includes solutions to application problems that are discovered during test and pre-production phases of a project.

It is assumed that the reader is familiar with J2EE concepts. This document emphasizes the value-added features provided by WebLogic Server and key information about how to use WebLogic Server features and facilities when developing stand-alone clients.

Guide to This Document

This chapter, Introduction and Roadmap, introduces the scope and organization of this guide.
Overview of Stand-alone Clients, describes basic client- server functionality.
Developing T3 Clients, describes how to create T3 clients.
Developing a J2EE Application Client (Thin Client), describes how to create a J2EE application client.
WebLogic JMS Thin Client, describes how to a create WebLogic JAMS thin client.
Reliably Sending Messages Using the JMS SAF Client, describes how to create a Store-and-Forward client.
Developing a J2SE Client, describes how to create a J2SE client.
Developing a WLS-IIOP Client, provides information on how to create a WebLogic Server-IIOP client.
Developing a CORBA/IDL Client, describes how to create a CORBA/IDL client.
Developing Clients for CORBA Objects, describes how to create a client that inter-operates with CORBA objects.
Developing a WebLogic C++ Client for a Tuxedo ORB, describes how to create a C++ client for the Tuxedo ORB.
Developing Security-Aware Clients, describes how to create a security-aware client.
Using EJBs with RMI-IIOP Clients, describes how to use EJBs with an RMI-IIOP client.
Client Application Deployment Descriptor Elements, is a reference for the standard J2EE client application deployment descriptor, application-client.xml, and weblogic-appclient.xml.
Code Examples, provides BEA examples that demonstrate connectivity between numerous clients and applications. This section includes examples that demonstrate using EJBs with RMI-IIOP, connecting to C++ clients, and setting up interoperability with a Tuxedo Server.

Related Documentation

For comprehensive guidelines for developing, deploying, and monitoring WebLogic Server applications, see:

Understanding WebLogic RMI is a guide to using Remote Method Invocation (RMI) and Internet Interop-Orb-Protocol (IIOP) features.
Developing Applications with WebLogic Server is a guide to developing WebLogic Server applications.
Deploying Applications to WebLogic Server is the primary source of information about deploying WebLogic Server applications.
WebLogic Server Performance and Tuning contains information on monitoring and improving the performance of WebLogic Server applications.

Samples and Tutorials

In addition to this document, BEA Systems provides a variety of code samples and tutorials for developers. The examples and tutorials illustrate WebLogic Server in action, and provide practical instructions on how to perform key development tasks.

BEA recommends that you run some or all examples before developing your own applications.

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.

MedRec includes a service tier consisting primarily of Enterprise Java Beans (EJBs) that work together to process requests from Web applications, Web services, and workflow applications, and future client applications. The application includes message-driven, stateless session, stateful session, and entity EJBs.

Examples in the WebLogic Server Distribution

WebLogic Server 9.2 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 9.2 Start menu.

New and Changed Features in WebLogic Server 9.2

The following sections describe new features and changes in this document for WebLogic Server 9.2:

WebLogic SAF Client
For a comprehensive listing of the new WebLogic JDBC features introduced in release 9.2, see “ What's New in WebLogic Server 9.2” in Release Notes.

WebLogic SAF Client

The Client-side SAF feature provides a mechanism whereby resource-restricted or occasionally-connected clients can reliably send messages when disconnected from a network. These messages are stored locally on the client and are forwarded to server-side JMS destinations when the client is connected. See Reliably Sending Messages Using the JMS SAF Client.