Sun ONE Application Server 7 is a J2EE 1.3 specification-compatible application server which also supports emerging Java Web Services standards as well as standard HTTP server programming facilities. Three editions of the application server are offered to suit a variety of needs for both production and development environments:
Platform Edition forms the core of the Sun ONE Application Server 7 product line. This free-for-production-use product offers a high-performance, small-footprint J2EE 1.3 specification-compatible runtime environment that is ideally suited for basic operational deployments, as well as for embedding in third-party applications. Web-services ready, the Platform Edition includes built-in technologies proven by the Sun ONE Web Server and Sun ONE Messge Queue products.
Platform Edition deployments are limited to single application server instances (i.e. single virtual machines for the Java platform ("Java virtual machine" or "JVMTM")). Multi-tier deployment topologies are supported by the Platform edition, but the web server tier proxy does not perform load balancing. In Platform Edition, administrative utilities are limited to local clients only.
Platform Edition is integrated into Solaris 9.
This is the edition that is the focus of this Getting Started Guide. The Standard Edition layers enhanced, remote-management capabilities on top of the Platform Edition. Enhanced management capabilities, remote command-line, and web-based administration are all included as part of the Standard Edition. This edition also includes the ability to partition web application traffic through a web server tier proxy. Standard Edition supports configuration of multiple application server instances (JVMs) per machine.
Enterprise Edition enhances the core application server platform with greater high availability, load balancing and clustering capabilities suited for the most demanding J2EE-based application deployments. The management capabilities of the Standard Edition are extended in Enterprise Edition to account for multi-instance and multi-machine deployments.
Clustering support includes easy-to-configure groups of cloned application server instances to which client requests can be load balanced. Both external load balancers and load balancing web tier-based proxies are supported by this edition. HTTP session, stateful session bean instance and Java Message Service (JMS) resource failover are included in the Enterprise Edition. The patented "Always On" highly available database technology forms the basis for the HA persistence store in the Enterprise Edition.
For more product information, see the Sun ONE Application Server page on the Sun Microsystems web site.
The Sun ONE Application Server manuals are available as online files in Portable Document Format (PDF) and Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) formats, at:
The following table lists tasks and concepts described in the Sun ONE Application Server manuals. The left column lists the tasks and concepts, and the right column lists the corresponding manuals.
Table P-1 Sun ONE Application Server Documentation Roadmap
This section describes the types of conventions used throughout this guide:
The following general conventions are used in this guide:
File and directory paths are given in UNIX(R) format (with forward slashes separating directory names). For Windows versions, the directory paths are the same, except that backslashes are used to separate directories.
URLs are given in the format:
http://server.domain/path/file.html
In these URLs, server is the server name where applications are run; domain is your Internet domain name; path is the server's directory structure; and file is an individual filename. Italic items in URLs are placeholders.
Font conventions include:
The monospace font is used for sample code and code listings, API and language elements (such as function names and class names), file names, pathnames, directory names, and HTML tags.
Italic type is used for code variables.
Italic type is also used for book titles, emphasis, variables and placeholders, and words used in the literal sense.
Bold type is used as either a paragraph lead-in or to indicate words used in the literal sense.
Installation root directories for most platforms are indicated by install_dir in this document. Exceptions are noted in "Conventions Referring to Directories" on Conventions Referring to Directories.
By default, the location of install_dir on most platforms is:
Solaris 8 non-package-based Evaluation installations:
user's home directory/sun/appserver7
Solaris unbundled, non-evaluation installations:
/opt/SUNWappserver7
Windows, all installations:
C:\Sun\AppServer7
For the platforms listed above, default_config_dir and install_config_dir are identical to install_dir. See Conventions Referring to Directories for exceptions and additional information.
Instance root directories are indicated by instance_dir in this document, which is an abbreviation for the following:
default_config_dir/domains/domain/instance
UNIX-specific descriptions throughout this manual apply to the Linux operating system as well, except where Linux is specifically mentioned.
By default, when using the Solaris 8 and 9 package-based installation and the Solaris 9 bundled installation, the application server files are spread across several root directories. These directories are described in this section.
For Solaris 9 bundled installations, this guide uses the following document conventions to correspond to the various default installation directories provided:
install_dir refers to /usr/appserver/, which contains the static portion of the installation image. All utilities, executables, and libraries that make up the application server reside in this location.
default_config_dir refers to /var/appserver/domains, which is the default location for any domains that are created.
install_config_dir refers to /etc/appserver/config, which contains installation-wide configuration information such as licenses and the master list of administrative domains configured for this installation.
For Solaris 8 and 9 package-based, non-evaluation, unbundled installations, this guide uses the following document conventions to correspond to the various default installation directories provided:
install_dir refers to /opt/SUNWappserver7, which contains the static portion of the installation image. All utilities, executables, and libraries that make up the application server reside in this location.
default_config_dir refers to /var/opt/SUNWappserver7/domainswhich is the default location for any domains that are created.
install_config_dir refers to /etc/opt/SUNWappserver7/config, which contains installation-wide configuration information such as licenses and the master list of administrative domains configured for this installation.
If you have problems with your system, contact customer support using one of the following mechanisms:
The online support web site at:
http://www.sun.com/supportraining/
The telephone dispatch number associated with your maintenance contract
Please have the following information available prior to contacting support. This helps to ensure that our support staff can best assist you in resolving problems:
Description of the problem, including the situation where the problem occurs and its impact on your operation
Machine type, operating system version, and product version, including any patches and other software that might be affecting the problem
Detailed steps on the methods you have used to reproduce the problem
Any error logs or core dumps