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Stretching middleware

Oracle9iAS is a viable solution for enterprise-wide mid-tier integration

By Maggie Biggs, InfoWorld, 11/22/02

Integrating dissimilar and far-flung enterprise assets can be daunting. But IT executives can successfully address the issue by selecting mid-tier technologies that can act as scalable hubs. With its latest application server release, Oracle provides a solid, all-inclusive approach that effectively addresses many facets of enterprise integration.

Oracle9iAS Release 2 (Version 9.0.3) goes beyond J2EE (Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition) application server functionality by including a bevy of built-in features, such as granular Web caching, portal technology, Web services support, and business intelligence tools. Based on our tests, this release is worthy of upgrade consideration for existing Oracle9iAS customers. In addition, enterprises seeking a well-appointed mid-tier solution will definitely want to test-drive Oracle9iAS.

Oracle's application server solution comes in two editions, Standard and Enterprise. The Standard Edition includes the application server, the Apache Web server (Version 1.3.22, not 2.0), and a portal development kit; Oracle's Internet File System; and TopLink, an object-relational mapping facility. The Standard Edition also includes support for clustering, but the Enterprise Edition offers a better toolset for managing clusters.

The Enterprise Edition also includes Oracle's Web caching server, which provides a high degree of granularity for caching content using Edge Side Includes. In our test applications, we were able to easily cache frequently accessed pages as well as parts of pages. In addition, we were able to use available administration tools that follow Oracle's Enterprise Manager look and feel to monitor cache activity.

This Oracle9iAS version implements J2EE 1.3, with support for the latest Java specifications. We implemented many J2EE 1.3 applications on Oracle9iAS using several of the application server's supported platforms, including Linux, Solaris, and Windows. We found the implementation to be straightforward, and we were able to implement and access our transactional applications.

Interesting in this release is expanded support for Web servers and databases. We used the included Oracle HTTP Server, which is Apache-based, and also Sun ONE (Open Network Environment) Application Server with equal success. Oracle also supports Microsoft's IIS (Internet Information Server) Web server. On the database side, customers can use the Oracle database or other databases such as IBM DB2, Sybase, or Microsoft SQL Server.

Oracle has included a new clickstream server with Oracle9iAS that provides useful metrics about customer-facing and business partner-related applications. Examining clickstream output can give you insight into application traffic trends and other customer data, such as referring sites. This release also offers a built-in online analytical processing server and a forms server.

Sites that need to integrate enterprise applications or legacy assets will find Oracle's InterConnect a compelling part of the Enterprise Edition. Customers can use InterConnect adapters to link data housed in enterprise applications such as SAP, PeopleSoft, and Siebel with other business applications riding on the mid-tier. Likewise, data stored in mainframes or in application messaging environments such as MQ Series can also be included.

For more enterprise computing news, visit InfoWorld. Story copyright InfoWorld Media Group, Inc.

 

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