Oracle today announced the availability of its J2EE 1.4 Developer Preview, which includes beta's of the new Oracle 10g appserver and Toplink 10g. The appserver now features J2EE 1.4 support, as well as a two phase commit transactions, JMX 1.2, JSR-77/88 support, and integrated TopLink CMP. Toplink now features JAXB, legacy mapping via JCA, and more.

Check out the OC4J 10g developer preview and Oracle Application Server TopLink 10g.

Related articles:
Press Release.
Oracle Issues J2EE 1.4 Developer Preview (internetworld).

Does the new "10g" branding reflect the price? ;-)

Nah, that's way too cheap for Oracle.

Actually Oracle offers its J2EE server(+TopLink + 5 seats of JDeveloper) for 5G ($5,000).
This is what Oracle refers to as the Java Edition of Oracle Application Server.
But before you pay anything - just try it out for free by downloading it from
http://otn.oracle.com

No that is for grid computing

Does it implement JMS 1.1?

Provides JMS 1.1 implementations with OC4J JMS and Oracle JMS.

We always complain Oracle is too late for J2EE, they are apparently not ..

Well they are again late, as 10G will not be production until summer of 2004.

Well, i don´t know exactly what you mean by "being late again" Is there any standard spec for grip computing that anyone out there is implementing already?. As for the j2ee spec, you know that 1.4 is still in Beta 2, so... In any case, you can find here quite a few things included in 1.4 that you can already test in Oracle´s j2ee container preview:

http://otn.oracle.com/tech/java/oc4j/1003/content_preview.html

10g!!!
Very interesting^^
What does 10g stand for?

> Very interesting^^
> What does 10g stand for?

The license fees for acquiring the software, which is
the amount of GOLD necessary to produce a gravitational
pull of this magnitude. :)

(No offense, Oracle ;^) the company I work for is the
largest Oracle account in Taiwan :)

Will oracle 10g J2EE Appserver add grid computing capability?

I just cant wait to get one copy of JDeveloper 10G. quite promissing the
features

You will be able to download Oracle JDeveloper 10g early next week from http://otn.oracle.com

raghu

Will it support all the APIs of JWSDP

Vimal

Isn't 10g at least in one way a step backward from 9i?

:)

Kinsley

Isn't 10g at least in one way a step backward from 9i?

There's a saying: "One step forward, two steps back." (9 to 10 is one step forward, i to g is two steps back.)

So, has anyone tried the new 10g "grid features" yet? What are they?

I found this (but about the 9i database):
http://otn.oracle.com/oramag/webcolumns/2003/opinion/souder_opcol_0703.html

And this:
http://otn.oracle.com/products/oracle9i/grid_computing/content.html

If anyone gets to the Oracle show in SF, post a summary of what they cover on 10g please.

Peace,

Cameron Purdy
Tangosol, Inc.
Coherence: Easily share live data across a cluster!

Hi Cameron, I am also interested in "new grid features". But I am afraid that using grid in appserver's name is just for marketing purposes. I hope, that OracleWorld Online will bring answers to our questions.

Tomas

Does 10g (10.0.3) mean that Oracle forgets 9.0.4 version?? It was scheduled for "summer 2003".

well, basically u can forget about 9.0.4 ... unless u request it from them...
make sure u pay for the support fee....
They stop 9.0.4 (Unless u request it from them)

I discovered from our Oracle rep that version 9.04 of app server which was supposed to come out now, is being released at 10i later.

Patrick Miller
University of Notre Dame

This sounds very encouraging. I've always liked Orion (although I've encountered some RMI bugs that have driven me back to WebLogic in a recent project) and I've heard that Oracle have made some worthwhile improvements. However, the lack of a lightweight transaction coordinator supporting 2PC in 9iAS seemed a major omission. Once Oracle has this, it should become much more competitive.

Regards,
Rod

What? Oracle 9iAS doesn't support 2PC? Wow. I would have thought that supporting 2PC/XA would have been part of the J2EE spec. Anyone know any other application servers that don't support 2PC?

hi Ppl,

I'm quite confused... how does Grid computing bebefit a J2EE container. J2EE has no concept/support of/for splitting computational tasks across multiple nodes/machines. So what features does grid computing bring to J2EE? Or am I missing something?

Cheers

Smythe

When will Oracle stop releasing press and release a "real" world working application server.

I don't know how these Oracle shops run their distributed applications on press releases...

Someone told me these Oracle shops are usually trapped with monolithic PL/SQL spaghetti and live on the hope of press releases.

So, really, anyone out there using Oracle9iAS on an “Object Oriented” based distributed system. I mean applications, which really use CMP for their business objects with perhaps, rule engines, Web Services, J2EE connector services and even CORBA?

We have been using Oracle's J2EE Container for Java (OC4J) from release 1.0.

We have been absolutely happy with this product. In my personal experience, this is a fast, reliable product. OC4J is simple to learn, easy to maintain and is the most developer-friendly product I know about. I have extensively developed on other J2EE servers too, but I prefer OC4J.

J2EE is a strategic area for Oracle. However, my impression is that Oracle customers are behind the development and are stuck with PL/SQL technology.

Hi George,
Probably you are unaware that Oracle is one of the largest J2EE Application server vendor and several customers use Oracle's J2EE container in production environment and indeed CMP engine and other features.

Also the Oracle Application Server Containers for J2EE (OC4J) is purely written in Java and the same distribution runs in any platform and it does not depend on PL/SQL or anything else you mentioned. You can find more about this at http://otn.oracle.com/tech/java/oc4j/content.html .

You can view the some of the customer profiles that uses Oracle's J2EE containers from the http://www.oracle.com/customers/index.html?jtw.html .

By the way, when you made the posting probably you may have used Oracle9iAS as theserverside.com uses Oracle9iAS beside few others .. Please see http://www.oracle.com/customers/profiles/PROFILE9585.HTML

Probably you don't know Oracle submitted all it's record breaking ECPerf and SPECjAppServer benchmarks using it's CMP engine ..

regards
Debu Panda
Oracle
Oracle

Forgibe my ignorance, but you did not answer the original question - how does OC4J 903 handle JTA Tx's spanning Oracle and M$ SQL Server databases, or JMS receive followed by a JDBC call.

Hi Debu

I have nothing against Oracle, but its very frustrating that with your deceptive marketing and targeting "Non-technical" information technology managers. These managers are the decision makers, which causes real technical developers pain and suffering.
 
>"Probably you are unaware that Oracle is one of the largest J2EE Application server vendor and several customers use Oracle's J2EE container in production environment and indeed CMP engine and other features. "

How many were already Oracle customers and got Oracle9iAS by default? Better question how many Oracle9iAS user don't use Oracle database? How long has Oracle9iAS been EJB "fully" compliant for "production"? I wonder if these several customers just needed Tomcat...

>Also the Oracle Application Server Containers for J2EE (OC4J) is purely written in Java and the same distribution runs in any platform and it does not depend on PL/SQL or anything else you mentioned. You can find more about this at http://otn.oracle.com/tech/java/oc4j/content.html."

Purely written in Java is no longer a marketing or technical hype these days. You can start thanking Orion for your OC4J product. No thanks for the link, I already everything I need to know about your application server.

>"You can view the some of the customer profiles that uses Oracle's J2EE containers from the http://www.oracle.com/customers/index.html?jtw.html. "

I urge everyone to take your advice and read those customer profiles. Then go check out Weblogic, Borland Enterprise Server and other application server profiles.

>"By the way, when you made the posting probably you may have used Oracle9iAS as theserverside.com uses Oracle9iAS beside few others.. Please see http://www.oracle.com/customers/profiles/PROFILE9585.HTML "

I really like these TSS guys, but after the .NET vs. J2EE fiasco, I don't put too much value in TSS internal projects. I comment only by my own "hands on" experience and facts.

>"Probably you don't know Oracle submitted all it's record breaking ECPerf and SPECjAppServer benchmarks using it's CMP engine..”

I always liked OC4J, nimble and fast (again thanks to Orion)- however, a fast CMP engine is just one aspect of the complete J2EE picture. OC4J alone is applicable in many situations, as long as Oracle keeps their hands off.

So, if OC4J fulfils the requirement just stick with the pure Orion product.

I urge everyone to take your advice and read those customer profiles. Then go check out Weblogic, Borland Enterprise Server and other application server profiles.

Hello Panda, please answer my post and tell the world how wrong I am, I'm ready to reply to your rebottle, so come on and tell us how great your application server is...

Please, let's put a stop to Oracle's game and read these customer profiles. Better yet, download Oracle9iAS and see for yourself.

Too bad Oracle is not subjected to Doctor's like malpractice cases - imagine what a class action case against Oracle would look like...

George,
See my response inline. Unfortunately I'm busy in the OracleWorld and could not respond to your questions earlier.

>>"I have nothing against Oracle, but its very frustrating that with your deceptive marketing and targeting "Non-technical" information technology managers. These managers are the decision makers, which causes real technical developers pain and suffering."

Probably you are mistaken that I'm marketing person. I’m not a Product Marketing Manager and indeed the Technical Product Manager and responsible for the EJB container. This is not a marketing gimmick and we have real implementation of J2EE 1.4 features that several customers were asking. So you cannot comment without trying out the product !
  
>>>"How many were already Oracle customers and got Oracle9iAS by default? Better question how many Oracle9iAS user don't use Oracle database? How long has Oracle9iAS been EJB "fully" compliant for "production"? I wonder if these several customers just needed Tomcat... "

Oracle's current EJB 1.1 compliant container has been available and production since June 2001 and several of our customers are using the EJB container. I don't know whether you are aware that Oracle has more than 16,000 customers that are using Oracle Application Server. We have support for EJB 2.0 in a production release for more than a year.

>>”Purely written in Java is no longer a marketing or technical hype these days. You can start thanking Orion for your OC4J product. No thanks for the link, I already everything I need to know about your application server”

I mentioned this only because you tried to create confustion that Oracle Application Server uses PL/SQL and proprietary stuff. OC4J 10.0.3 preview release demonstrates Oracle's commitment to J2EE

>>”I urge everyone to take your advice and read those customer profiles. Then go check out Weblogic, Borland Enterprise Server and other application server profiles.”

You are welcome to do that.

>>
“I always liked OC4J, nimble and fast (again thanks to Orion)- however, a fast CMP engine is just one aspect of the complete J2EE picture. OC4J alone is applicable in many situations, as long as Oracle keeps their hands off.

So, if OC4J fulfils the requirement just stick with the pure Orion product”


Probably you are not aware OC4J is not Orion. Oracle has greatly enhanced the container and made it performant and enterprise ready since it licensed Orion. You can no longer compare the these products. We had J2EE 1.3 compliance much before Orion had, we have preview features of J2EE 1.4 and integration with Toplink CMP that Orion does not have. OC4J now performs better with Oracle database and OC4J is now certified to be used to third-party databases like DB2, SQLServer, etc. using DataDirect JDBC drivers(available free) and we have several customers using OC4J with third-party databases.

regards
Debu Panda
Oracle

Debu,

Please could you tell me what Grid Computing features your new app server(s) will have? or does the grid features just apply to the new release of the database?

Cheers

Smythe

Smythe,
You can find about the Grid features in Oracle Application Server 10g (9.0.4) by looking the New Features document

http://otn.oracle.com/products/ias/pdf/10g_904_NF_WP.pdf

regards
Debu

Wow, Oracle employs a Panda! How nice! I wonder if they shoud make their next product box black-and-white :)

sorry my questuion should have been :

"how does Grid computing BENEFIT a J2EE container. J2EE has no concept/support of/for splitting computational tasks across multiple nodes/machines. So what features does grid computing bring to J2EE? Or am I missing something?"

Cheers

Smythe...

Looks like there has been some confusion about different releases of Oracle Application Server. Let me clarify that Oracle9iAS 9.0.4 is **not cancelled** and is being enhanced with Grid computing features and will be released next month as Oracle Application Server 10g (9.0.4).

To summarize we have two major releases planned:

Oracle Application Server 10g (904) - production in October
Oracle Application Server 10g (10.0.3)- production in Summer 2004

regards
Debu Panda
Principal Product Manager
Oracle Application Server Containers for J2EE (OC4J)

Oracle Application Server 10g (904) - production in October

How confusing is that?

Does the 904 version (let's use the real version and forget about marketing hype) implement J2EE 1.4 features, or should be wait till next summer?

>
> How confusing is that?
>
> Does the 904 version (let's use the real version and forget about marketing hype) implement J2EE 1.4 features, or should be wait till next summer?

OC4J 10g 9.0.4 implements J2EE 1.3 functionality
OC4J 10g 10.0.3 implements J2EE 1.4 functionality

The 10.0.3 version is a developer preview and it is available now, so there is no need to wait until next summer to start using it for development. For development projects that are going production before summer 2004, we'd obviously recommend going with 9.0.4.

Rob.

Director, OC4J Product Management

Debu Panda "principal product manager" says:

> To summarize we have two major releases planned:
>
> Oracle Application Server 10g (904) - production in October
> Oracle Application Server 10g (10.0.3)- production in Summer 2004

This is pretty confusing (to say the least)!

>
> To summarize we have two major releases planned:
>
> Oracle Application Server 10g (904) - production in October
> Oracle Application Server 10g (10.0.3)- production in Summer 2004
>
> regards
> Debu Panda
> Principal Product Manager
> Oracle Application Server Containers for J2EE (OC4J)

Gee, I don't know how anyone could be confused by that. 2 product releases with the same name but an entire version number apart, one implementing J2EE 1.3, the other J2EE 1.4... Yeah, no confusion there...

Of course, we don't need to worry about it, because Oracle will have rebranded their whole product line to something completely different next year... Let's see... Grid computing was cool, so we have 10g.... by next year, AOP should be all the rage in new development, so we'll see Oracle 11a :-)

I can see ORCL is facing a delimma here: it wants to follow the same marketing ploy of BEAS by rolling out a new version of OC4J with only incremental new features (similar to the move from WebLogic Server 7.0 to 8.1). This results in a product strangely named "Oracle Application Server 10g (9.0.4)". Well, at least they are honest about it - 9.0.4 means it is not a major new product and it is still J2EE 1.3 technology, not 1.4. My suggestion is to call it Oracle10gAS 10.0.1 if they have to have the letter "g" in there, and explain why the Oracle9iAS 9.0.4 name is removed from the product strategy.

What is a "lightweight transaction coordinator" ?