Release Notes

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What’s New in WebLogic Server 10.0

Welcome to BEA WebLogic Server 10.0. The following sections describe new and changed functionality in this WebLogic Server™ release.

 


Java EE Metadata Annotations and Dependency Injection

The Java EE programming model uses the JDK 5.0 annotations feature for EJBs, Web services, and Web applications, such as Servlets and JSPs. Annotations simplify the application development process by allowing developers to specify within the Java class itself how the application component behaves in the container (such as lifecycle methods), requests for dependency injection, and so on. Annotations are an alternative to deployment descriptors that were required by older versions of Enterprise applications (J2EE 1.4 and earlier). In fact, with Java EE metadata annotations, the standard deployment descriptors are optional.

Dependency injection (DI) allows application components to declare dependencies on external resources and configuration parameters via annotations. The container reads these annotations and injects resources or environment entries into the application components. Dependency injection is simply an easier-to-program alternative to using the javax interfaces or JNDI APIs to look up resources.

See:

 


Core Server

Modularity and Client Support

Some aspects of WebLogic Server’s file structure have been reorganized for greater flexibility. Prior to this release, the weblogic.jar file could be bundled with a client application to provide WebLogic Server specific value added features, such as:

Many WebLogic Server components that were formerly included in the weblogic.jar archive file are now included in separate modules. The weblogic.jar archive now refers to these components in the modules directory from its manifest classpath.

The weblogic.jar archive has never been completely self-contained and now it is decidely so. The weblogic.jar now includes relative manifest classpath references to the WL_HOME/modules directory. Because of this, weblogic.jar can no longer simply be moved to any new location. To use weblogic.jar in a different location, you have two choices:

  1. Include not only weblogic.jar but also WL_HOME/modules/weblogic.server.modules_10.0.0.0.jar directly in the classpath.
  2. Modify the manifest classpath of weblogic.jar to refer to this JAR in the correct relative location.
Note: Use the Jar Builder tool to create a consolidated wlfullclient.jar for client applications as described in Using the WebLogic Jar Builder Tool in Programming Stand-alone Clients.

Version Information about Subcomponents

The java weblogic.version command has a new -verbose optional argument that returns version information about numerous WebLogic Server components.

Security Consequences

As a consequence of the weblogic.jar reorganization, your existing J2SE security policies may need to be modified to control access to the new separate modules. The default J2SE security policy in WebLogic Server has been modified to grant access to the new modules.

Third-Party Libraries

The WebLogic Server classpath contains a number of 3rd party libraries that are used internally. However, the only APIs that are supported for customer use are those that are in BEA’s published API Javadocs. Any use of the 3rd party classes on the WebLogic Server classpath is at your own risk; these classes are subject to change or removal at any time.

 


Enhanced Shared Library Support

The Java EE platform provides several mechanisms for applications to use optional packages and shared libraries. Libraries can be bundled with an application or may be installed separately for use by any application. An EAR file may contain a directory that contains libraries packaged in JAR files. The library-directory element of the EAR file’s deployment descriptor contains the name of this directory. This feature is similar to the APP-INF/lib shared library feature supported in WebLogic Server. However, if both APP-INF/lib and library-directory exist, then the jars in the library-directory would take precedence

See Library Directories in Developing Applications with WebLogic Server.

 


JDBC and JTA

The following features are new to WebLogic JDBC and JTA in this release.

Improved JDBC Connection Monitoring and Testing

Prior to this release, WebLogic Server has relied on JDBC drivers to properly handle, or at least respond in a timely way to any DBMS connectivity failures. For certain network failure conditions, WebLogic Server was not able to determine a connection failure until the TCP/IP timeout expires. This feature provides additional connection health monitoring and testing for connections where connectivity is suspected to be broken. See Database Connection Testing Semantics in Configuring and Managing WebLogic JDBC.

Oracle Fast Connection Failover Support

WebLogic Server supports Oracle Fast Connection Failover. This feature offers a driver-independent way for your JDBC application to take advantage of the connection failover facilities offered by Oracle 10g. See Using WebLogic Server with Oracle RAC in Configuring and Managing WebLogic JDBC.

MySQL 5.0 Support

WebLogic Server bundles a driver for MySQL 5.0.x and supports MySQL 5.0.x. See Supported Database Configurations.

JTA 1.1 Support

WebLogic Server is JTA 1.1 compliant, including standard support for looking up the TransactionSynchronizationRegistry object in JNDI using java:comp/TransactionSynchronizationRegistry. BEA extends support by providing two additional global JNDI names: javax/transaction/TransactionSynchronizationRegistry and weblogic/transaction/TransactionSynchronizationRegistry.

For more information on JTA, see Supported Programming Model and Java Transaction API and BEA WebLogic Extensions in Programming WebLogic JTA.

Automatic Migration of the Transaction Recovery Service

The WebLogic Server migration framework allows an administrator to configure the JTA Transaction Recovery Service (TRS) so that it is automatically migrated from the current unhealthy hosting server to a healthy active server with the help of WebLogic Server health monitoring capabilities. This capability improves the availability of the JTA TRS in a cluster because it can be quickly restarted on a redundant server should the host server fail.

For more information, see Service-Level Migration in Using WebLogic Server Clusters.

Cross-Domain Security for JTA

WebLogic Server’s JTA implementation supports the new cross-domain security feature. See Cross-Domain Security and Configuring Cross Domain Security in Programming WebLogic JTA.

 


Diagnostics

The WebLogic Diagnostics Framework (WLDF) and the WLDF Console Extension both have new features.

WebLogic Diagnostic Framework

WebLogic Diagnostic Framework Console Extension

 


Messaging

WebLogic Server 10.0 includes the following improvements in WebLogic Server JMS:

Migration of JMS-Related Services

The WebLogic Server migration framework allows an administrator to configure migratable targets so that certain JMS-related services can be migrated from the current unhealthy hosting server to a healthy active server. High availability is achieved by migrating a migratable target from one clustered server to another when a problem occurs on the original server. You can also manually migrate a migratable target for scheduled maintenance.

In addition to JMS servers and custom persistent stores, WebLogic Server supports service-level migration for the following JMS-related services:

For more information, see Service-Level Migration in Using WebLogic Server Clusters.

JMS ${APPNAME} Parameter to Create Unique Runtime JNDI Names for JMS Resources

In a clustered environment, JMS resources, such as connection factories, standalone destinations, and distributed destinations, can now substitute in a unique qualifier to a JNDI name at runtime to make the global JNDI names unique for those resources. The JMS ${APPNAME} parameter is replaced at runtime with the application name of the host application being merged to the application library.

See Configuring JMS Application Modules for Deployment in Configuring and Managing WebLogic Message Bridge.

Cross-Domain Security for JMS

WebLogic Server’s JMS implementation supports the new cross-domain security feature. See Cross-Domain Security and Using Cross Domain Security in Programming WebLogic JMS.

 


Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB), Version 3.0

WebLogic Server 10.0 implements Version 3.0 of the Enterprise JavaBeans specification, also known as EJB 3.0.

One of the central goals of EJB 3.0 is to make it much easier to program an EJB, in particular by reducing the number of required programming artifacts and introducing a set of EJB-specific metadata annotations that make programming the bean file easier and more intuitive.

Another goal of the EJB 3.0 specification is to standardize the persistence framework and reduce the complexity of the entity bean programming model and object-relational (O/R) mapping model.

WebLogic Server 10.0 continues to support Version 2.1 of the EJB specification.

For information on programming session EJBs using the new 3.0 programming model, see Programming WebLogic Enterprise JavaBeans, Version 3.0.

WebLogic Server 10.0 also provides an implementation of the BEA Kodo product. This provides support for JPA and JDO as well as value-added functionality.

For information on programming entity beans, see Java Persistence API. This guide is part of the larger BEA Kodo documentation set.

Upgrading EJB 2 Beans to EJB 3

Note that in EJB 2, the default transaction attribute for session beans or Message-Driven Beans is supports. This attribute has changed to required in EJB 3. If you convert session beans or MDBs from EJB2 to EJB3, take care to ensure that your classes and methods have the proper transactional behavior.

There is no change for EJB 2 session beans, MDBs, or entity beans deployed in this release of WebLogic Server.

Message-Driven Bean Startup Behavior

By default, Message-Driven Beans (MDBs) that are not part of an EAR will not accept connections until the server enters RUNNING mode, unless the start-mdbs-with-application flag is set to false. This change causes MDBs to have the same startup behavior whether they are deployed in an EAR or not. This change is intended to prevent MDBs from firing prematurely.

 


Web Services

Web Services include new and changed features, as described in the following sections:

Implementation and Update of Java EE 5 Web Services Specifications

As part of the Java EE 5 compliance, WebLogic Server includes the following new Web Services specification implementations:

WebLogic Server also includes the following specification updates:

See Understanding WebLogic Web Services.

New and Updated of WS-* Specification Implementations

WebLogic Server includes the following additions and updates to its WS-* specification implementations:

WebLogic Server includes a new set of security policy files that comply with WS-SecurityPolicy 1.2. See Configuring Message-Level Security.

Standalone Client JAR File

WebLogic Web Services now provide a standalone client JAR file that programmers can use to build and run Web Services client applications outside of the WebLogic Server container.

For details, see Invoking Web Services.

Support for MTOM/XOP in JAX-RPC

MTOM/XOP describes a method for optimizing the transmission of XML data of type xs:base64Binary using MIME attachments over HTTP to carry that data while at the same time allowing both the sender and the receiver direct access to the XML data without having to be aware that any MIME artifacts were used to marshal the xs:base64Binary data.

MTOM/XOP support is standard in JAX-WS. In this release of WebLogic Server, JAX-RPC-style Web Services also support it.

See Sending Binary Data Using MTOM/XOP.

Web Services Ant Task Changes

All three of the Web Services Ant tasks have a new attribute (type) that specifies whether to generate a JAX-RPC 1.1 or JAX-WS 2.0 style Web Service (jwsc/wsdlc) or client artifacts (clientgen).

Depending on the type of Web Service you are generating or for which you are generating client artifacts, only some of the Ant task attributes apply. The Ant task reference documentation has been updated to specify which attributes apply to which type of Web Service. See Ant Task Reference.

In addition, the WebLogic Web Services Ant tasks have been further updated as described in the following sections.

jwsc

The jwsc Ant task, used to compile a JWS file into a deployable Web Service, has changed as follows:

See jwsc in WebLogic Web Services: Reference.

clientgen

The clientgen Ant task has changed as follows:

See clientgen in WebLogic Web Services: Reference.

wsdlc

The wsdlc Ant task has the following new attributes:

See wsdlc in WebLogic Web Services: Reference.

Deprecated Web Services Features

The following classes and methods in the weblogic.xml.crypto.wss and weblogic.xml.crypto.wss.provider packages are deprecated:

 


Deployment

The following deployment features were added in this release:

 


Filtering Classloader

The WebLogic FilteringClassLoader enables users to configure deployment descriptors to explicitly specify packages that are always loaded from the application, rather than being loaded using the system classloader. See Using a Filtering Class Loader in Developing Applications with WebLogic Server.

 


Migration and Clustering

The following features related to migration and clustering were added in this release:

Migratable Targets Can Host Other JMS-related Services

In addition to JMS servers and custom persistent stores, WebLogic Server migratable targets also supports manual service-level migration for the following JMS-related services:

For more information, see Service-Level Migration in Using WebLogic Server Clusters.

Automatic Singleton Service Migration

Automatic singleton service migration allows the automatic health monitoring and migration of singleton services. A singleton service is a user-defined service operating within a cluster that is available on only one server at any given time.

When a migratable service fails or become unavailable for any reason (for example, because of a bug in the service code, server failure, or network failure), it is deactivated at its current location and activated on a new server.

For more information, see Automatic Singleton Service Migration in Using WebLogic Server Clusters.

Independent Support for Leasing in a Cluster

A database is no longer required to store leasing information that is used during server migration. For more information, see Server Migration in Using WebLogic Server Clusters.

Job Scheduler

The Job Scheduler functionality is an implementation of the commonj.timer API that can be used within a clustered environment. Job Schedulers allow cluster-wide timers to be aware of the other JVMs containing each server within the cluster and is therefor able to perform load balancing and failover. The Job Scheduler now supports MySQL, as well as Informix, DB2, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, and Sybase databases. For information on using the Job Scheduler, see Using the Timer API Within a Cluster in The Timer and Work Manager API (CommonJ).

Using Unicast for Communications within a Cluster

WebLogic Server provides an alternative to multicast communication within a cluster. Both multicast and unicast are used to facilitate communications between cluster members. Unicast is much easier to configure and requires fewer network resources. For information on configuring unicast, see One-to-Many Communications Using Unicast in Using WebLogic Server Clusters.

weblogic.PurgeConfigCache Utility Removed

The weblogic.PurgeConfigCache utility has been removed from this release, since it is no longer needed for migration.

 


Web Applications, Servlets, and JSPs

Web applications, such as servlets and JSPs, include new and changed features, as described in the following sections:

Support for Servlet 2.5

As part of the Java EE 5 compliance, WebLogic Server 10.0 implements the Servlet 2.5 specification. One of the new important features introduced in Servlet 2.5 is the support for annotations and resource injection on servlets, filters, and listeners. The annotations are used to declare dependencies on external resources. The container will detect annotations on such components and inject necessary dependencies. The annotations are also used to declare configuration data in Java code without the need to define that data in a deployment descriptor file. With annotations, the standard web.xml deployment descriptor is now optional.

See WebLogic Annotations for Web Components in Developing Web Applications, Servlets, and JSPs for WebLogic Server.

Support for JSF 1.2 and JSTL 1.2

JSF 1.2 (JavaServer™ Faces) and JSTL 1.2 (JSP™ Standard Tag Library) packages are bundled with WebLogic Server as shared Web application libraries. These libraries can be referenced by standard Web applications that use JSF or JSTL functionality. Weblogic Server 10.0 continues to support existing web applications that use JSF 1.1 and JSTL 1.1 functionality and bundle JSF 1.1 and JSTL 1.1 packages as shared web application libraries.

See Configuring JSF and JSTL Libraries in Developing Web Applications, Servlets, and JSPs for WebLogic Server.

Support for JSP 2.1

As part of the Java EE 5 compliance, Weblogic Server 10.0 implements the JSP 2.1 specification. One of the new important features introduced in JSP 2.1 is the support for deferred expressions. Deferred expressions allow the evaluation of a JSP 2.1 expression to be deferred so that it can be processed by the underlying mechanism at the appropriate moment within its lifecycle. Another important new feature is that tag handlers and event listeners can be annotated for resource injection.

Consistent with the JSP 2.1 specification, JSPs now implicitly import only the following five packages: java.lang.*, javax.servlet.*, javax.servlet.jsp.*, and javax.servlet.http.*. If you have existing JSPs that implicitly imported other packages, you must now import them explicitly.

See JSP Expression Language in Developing Web Applications, Servlets, and JSPs for WebLogic Server.

Weblogic Annotation for Web Components

The WebLogic Server 10.0 provides several Weblogic specific annotations to declare configuration data in Java code for servlets and filters. The annotations include the WLServlet, WLFilter, WLInitParam annotations. With these annotations, servlets and filters can be developed in a web application without having to declare them in a web.xml deployment descriptor.

See WebLogic Annotations for Web Components in Developing Web Applications, Servlets, and JSPs for WebLogic Server.

Java EE Application Client Utility

The weblogic.j2eeclient.Main utility, which you can use to execute Java EE application client code, has a new option, -clientName. Use this option to specify the name of the client JAR to be invoked when passing in an exploded EAR. For example:

java weblogic.j2eeclient.Main appclient.jar t3://localhost:7001

For more information about weblogic.j2eeclient.Main, see Developing a Java EE Application Client (Thin Client) in Programming Stand-alone Clients.

 


Spring Framework Support

WebLogic Server supports the deployment and use of applications that use the 2.0.2 version of the Spring Framework. For details, see Spring Applications Reference.

 


WebLogic Tuxedo Connector

This release of WebLogic Tuxedo Connector includes support for:

 


Security

The following features are new to WebLogic security in this release:

Cross-Domain Security

This release includes a new method of establishing security across two or more WebLogic Server domains. WebLogic Server establishes a security role for cross-domain users and uses the WebLogic Credential Mapping security provider in each domain to store the credentials to be used by the cross-domain users. See Enabling Trust Between WebLogic Server Domains.

Windows NT Authorization Provider Deprecated

The Windows NT Authentication provider is deprecated as of WebLogic Server 10.0. Use one or more other supported authentication providers instead.

 


SNMP

This release introduces several important changes to WebLogic Server SNMP services:

For more information, see Understanding the WebLogic Server SNMP Agents and MIB in SNMP Management Guide.

 


WebLogic Scripting Tool (WLST)

WebLogic Server release 10.0 introduces only minor changes to WLST:

 


Administration Console

WebLogic Server release 10.0 introduces the following changes to the Administration Console:

 


JMX

As of WebLogic Server 10.0, the JMX implementation supports the jmx.remote.x.request.waiting.timeout environment parameter. (The JMX Remote API 1.0 specification states that support for this parameter is optional.) Use this option to specify the number of milliseconds that your JMX client waits for the invocation of an MBean-server method to return. If a method does not return by the end of the timeout period, the client moves to its next set of instructions. By default, a client waits indefinitely for a method to return; if the MBean server is unable to complete an invocation, the JMX client will hang indefinitely.

For more information, see Make Remote Connections to an MBean Server in Developing Custom Management Utilities with JMX.

 


weblogic.apache Classes

The weblogic.apache.xerces.* classes, which have been deprecated since WebLogic Server release 9.1, have been removed from WebLogic Server as of release 10.0.

Also note that all other classes in the weblogic.apache.* packages have been deprecated since WebLogic Server release 9.2 and will be removed in a future release.

Instead of using these proprietary BEA classes, use the equivalent org.apache.* classes which you can download from http://xerces.apache.org/xerces-j/, or which are included in the JDK in the com.sun.org.apache.* packages.

 


Deprecated Beehive Functionality

The additional Beehive functionality that is available only in WebLogic Server, as described in Beehive Integration, is deprecated as of version 10.0 of WebLogic Server. This deprecation warning applies only to the functionality that is described in the Beehive Integration document, and not to Beehive functionlity described in other BEA documents or to open-source Beehive.

 


Deprecated EJB Functionality

In the next release, OpenJPA will provide a set of APIs for which compatibility is guaranteed. As a result of this effort, the following OpenJPA method signatures are deprecated and will change in the next release..

Table 1-1 Deprecated methods
Class
Method Signature
org.apache.openjpa.persistence.OpenJPAEntityManager
public int getConnectionRetainMode();
public int getRestoreState();
public int getDetachState();
public int getAutoClear();
public int getAutoDetach();
org.apache.openjpa.persistence.OpenJPAQuery
public int getOperation();
org.apache.openjpa.persistence.jdbc.JDBCFetchPlan
public int getEagerFetchMode();
public int getSubclassFetchMode();
public int getResultSetType();
public int getFetchDirection();
public int getJoinSyntax();
org.apache.openjpa.persistence.jdbc.EagerFetchMode
EagerFetchType value() default EagerFetchType.NONE;
org.apache.openjpa.persistence.jdbc.SubclassFetchMode
EagerFetchType value() default EagerFetchType.NONE;

 


Standards Support

This release of WebLogic Server supports the following standards.

Table 1 Java Standards Support
Standard
Version
Java EE
5.0
JDKs
5.0 (aka 1.5), 1.4 (clients only)
Java EE Enterprise Web Services
1.2, 1.1
Web Services Metadata for the Java Platform
2.0, 1.1
Java API for XML-Based Web Services (JAX-WS)
2.0
Java EE EJB
3.0, 2.1, 2.0, and 1.1
Java EE JMS
1.1, 1.0.2b
Java EE JDBC (with third-party drivers)
3.0
MS SQL jDriver
1.0
Oracle OCI jDriver
1.0 and some 2.0 features (batching)
Java EE JNDI
1.2
OTS/JTA
1.2 and 1.1
Java EE Servlet
2.5, 2.4, 2.3, and 2.2
Java EE Application Deployment
1.2
Java Authorization Contract for Containers (JACC)
1.1
Java EE JSP
2.1, 2.0, 1.2, and 1.1
RMI/IIOP
1.0
JMX
1.2, 1.0
JavaMail
1.2
JAAS
1.0 Full
Java EE CA
1.5, 1.0
JCE
1.4
Java RMI
1.0
JAX-B
2.0
JAX-P
1.2, 1.1
JAX-RPC
1.1, 1.0
JAX-R
1.0
SOAP Attachments for Java (SAAJ)
1.3, 1.2
Streaming API for XML (StAX)
1.0

Table 2 Web Services Standards Support
Standard
Version
Java EE Enterprise Web Services
1.2, 1.1
Web Services Metadata for the Java Platform (JWS)
2.0, 1.0
Java API for XML-Based Web Services (JAX-WS)
2.0
SOAP
1.1, 1.2
WSDL
1.1
JAX-RPC
1.1
SOAP Attachments for Java (SAAJ)
1.3, 1.2
WS-Security
1.1, 1.0
WS-Policy
1.0
WS-SecurityPolicy
1.2, 1.1
WS-PolicyAttachment
1.0
WS-Addressing
1.0
WS-ReliableMessaging
1.0
WS-Trust
1.0
WS-SecureConversation
1.3, 1.0
UDDI
2.0
JAX-R
1.0
JAX-B
2.0

Table 3 Other Standards
Standard
Version
SSL
v3
X.509
v3
Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML)
1.0, 1.1
LDAP
v3
TLS
v1
HTTP
1.1
SNMP
SNMPv1, SNMPv2, SNMPv3
xTensible Access Control Markup Language (XACML)
2.0
Partial implementation of Core and Hierarchical Role Based Access Control (RBAC) Profile of XACML
2.0
Internet Protocol (IP)
Versions:

Note: WLS supports IPV6 as long as the system is dual-hosted with IPV4. WLS licenses use IPV4 addresses so dual-hosted IP V4/V6 servers are required. Web server plug-ins, delivered with WLS, do not support IPv6.


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