WebLogic: The Definitive Guide

Who Should Read This Book?

J2EE is a mature platform for building enterprise-scale applications. This book caters to developers who are presently working on the WebLogic platform, and those J2EE programmers who are considering doing so in the future. If you are a programmer responsible for developing J2EE applications on WebLogic, an administrator who needs to manage the entire logical and physical setup for your application, or an architect responsible for evaluating which technologies, tools, and products should be used, this book is for you!

Let’s clarify how we believe this book can help the different groups within our target audience:

Developers

For the most part, we assume that developers reading this book are familiar with the J2EE platform. Developers should turn to other books, online resources, and published specifications for learning the intricate details of each J2EE technology. With the help of this book, you can then take that knowledge to the next level by putting that theory into practice when using WebLogic Server. Our aim is to guide you through the world of WebLogic and show how you can apply your J2EE expertise to build and manage applications on WebLogic. We reveal how WebLogic implements the various J2EE features, demonstrate how WebLogic enhances these services in interesting and useful ways, and explain how your applications can benefit from these features.

Administrators

Any group of users that is responsible for managing a WebLogic-based setup will find that this book has all the material needed to build a fundamental understanding of creating, managing, and maintaining WebLogic domains and services. This includes users who need to interact with the system in some nonprogrammatic way — for instance, the application assemblers, the deployers, and the tool providers. We explain how to manage the runtime WebLogic environment, discuss the performance implications and trade-offs, and examine the different design and security constraints.

System architects

A system architect needs to have a good understanding of the overall capabilities of the application server if he is to design effective solutions. For instance, he must be aware of the different system architectures supported by WebLogic, the overall organization of a WebLogic domain and supporting network infrastructure, how WebLogic resources cooperate in a clustered environment, what additional features and services are offered, and how to extract optimal performance from the application setup. He needs to be able to extrapolate the possibilities, but also understand the limitations and trade-offs of adopting a WebLogic-based solution. Our book attempts to provide a 360-degree view of WebLogic. We not only highlight its features and strengths, but also point out any shortcomings and issues of which you need to be aware.

We expect our target audience to have an understanding of the J2EE platform.

Developers, at the very least, should have some previous experience with programming servlets, creating JSP pages, using the JDBC API, and building EJBs. We encourage those who don’t to read other books from the O’Reilly catalogue that cover the entire gamut of J2EE technologies. The various J2EE specifications published by Sun Microsystems also serve as a useful reference. This book aims to build on that J2EE know-how, and guides you through the different J2EE technologies and enterprise services supported by WebLogic.

For system administrators, this book serves as a complete guide for managing a WebLogic environment. We expect that you will have had past experience with administering an enterprise application, perhaps on a different platform using other technologies.

For Java architects, this book reveals how other WebLogic enterprise services can enrich your solutions with exciting possibilities. It also advances your understanding of how to achieve the best performance out of your application architecture. We expect you will have had some previous experience in building and designing multi-tier system architectures, and some level of awareness of the capabilities of the J2EE technology stack.