News

BEA adds business integration toolset

• By Lana Gates
• April 2, 2003

BEA Systems Inc. (http://www.bea.com), San Jose, Calif., has started shipping Version 8.1 of its BEA WebLogic Server and WebLogic JRockit products right on the heels of its delivery of Version 8.0.

Officials at the application infrastructure software company describe the WebLogic enterprise application server as a platform for building service-oriented Java applications that can help solve business integration challenges. The latest release adds functionality that is designed to shorten development cycles, increase operational efficiency and automate business processes. In addition, said Eric Stahl, director of product marketing, the upgrade can help organizations to become more responsive to customers by providing real-time access to applications or internally housed data.

Officials say Version 8.1 features simplify development and deployment, and add industrial-strength Web services security and reliability, performance gains and auto configuration and monitoring.

The JRockit server-side Java Virtual Machine (JVM) is described by BEA officials as a key element of the BEA WebLogic Enterprise Platform. Optimized for the Intel platform, JRockit 8.1 includes support for third-party profiling and debugging tools, as well as for Intel's new IA-64 platform, officials say. The new release is certified with WebLogic 8.1, and is the default JVM for server-side applications using Windows and Linux on both IA-32 and IA-64 architectures.

JRockit 8.1 is available for free download from http://dev2dev.bea.com and from BEA's JRockit distributors, which include Bull, Intel and Red Hat.

The general availability of WebLogic and JRockit 8.1 mark BEA's launch into the business integration solutions business, say observers. The company is focusing on the convergence of the application building process and the application integration process. Business integration, said Stahl, allows people to build new applications, integrate them with back-end applications and then provide access where it was not otherwise possible.

The real value, Stahl added, "is about increasing customer-facing applications where customers are getting access to more and better information and, therefore, are more inclined to work with your organization."

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