Weblogic Server (WLS) has been a very popular commercially available JEE application Server. After Oracle took over BEA , Weblogic replaced Oracle Application Server and now WLS is the platform for all the fusion middleware products.
You might ask me why do we need an application server in the first place? And why do I have to go through the tedious process of downloading and installing weblogic when I need only Oracle SOA.
Well, the Java EE application servers provide a runtime environment for Java enterprise applications (EAR, WAR).In a word I can say they are “containers” for the JEE application. But thats not it, as per the JEE specifications they provide feature like - JNDI, JMS, JDBC ,load balancing, failover capabilities etc.
Now, coming back to fusion middleware and its blood relationship with weblogic.
When you look at the infrastructure of any fusion middleware product you will observe that weblogic is part of every infrastructure diagram, here are a some reasons why:
1. The fusion middleware products ( OSB, SOA) domains use Weblogic for data sources, java messaging, multi-threading , work management etc.
2. FMW products customize and configure WLS to suite their applications. Post an OSB installation observe the applications that automatically get deployed on WLS.
3. Every FMW product comes with its own domain template, EM and JRF ( Java required files ). You will not find these three on a plain WLS domain.
So to cut the story short, here is a diagram which shows the layers of products:
Find out more in the upcoming WLS training.
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