BEA Systems, Inc., have announced general availability of BEA WebLogic Server 4.0, a major update to its award-winning Java-based Web application server software designed to provide the performance and scalability required to power real-time e-commerce and Internet business applications. A free trial of BEA WebLogic Server 4.0 is available from the BEA Web site (
http://www.beasys.com/weblogicserver4/
).
BEA WebLogic Server 4.0 includes new clustering capabilities designed to meet the performance and scalability requirements of businesses with rapidly expanding customer demand simply by adding additional server machines. Based on the enterprise Java standards, including Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB), BEA WebLogic Server 4.0 dramatically out-performs all other currently commercially available Web application servers, according to a battery of tests BEA ran using a variety of hardware platforms.
"BEA WebLogic Server`s early entry into the Enterprise JavaBeans server market has been a contributing factor to the market`s growth," said Anne Thomas, a senior analyst for the Patricia Seybold Group, a Boston, Mass.-based industry analyst firm. "While we are still in the early stages of the EJB market, BEA has emerged as the vendor to beat. Version 4.0 is important to helping BEA further consolidate its leadership position. With 4.0, BEA WebLogic Server is one of the fastest, safest, and most reliable ways to bring your business to the Web via Java."
More than 1,500 companies around the globe use BEA WebLogic Server technology. Hundreds of customers such as Amazon.com, APL, Attachmate, Covad Communications, Manugistics, Qwest Communications, Rubric, TRIP.com, and WebMD use BEA WebLogic Server for a host of business-critical applications including real-time shipment tracking, Web customer self-service systems, and on-line flight reservations. In addition, nearly 50 independent software vendors (ISVs) are developing next-generation e-business applications built on BEA WebLogic Server.
"We chose to use BEA WebLogic Server 4.0 because it provides all that we needed - complete Java integration, easy implementation, and excellent customer support," said Mike Howard, senior programmer system analyst for the Cessna Aircraft Company. "Also, we feel the scalability and fault tolerance is designed to meet our long-term needs. We`ve been impressed with the added load balancing features in 4.0, and believe BEA delivers the most comprehensive application server on the market today."
"Our customers must have a solution that is reliable, scalable, and fast," said Alfred Chuang, president of WebXpress, a BEA company. "Our results for BEA WebLogic Server 4.0 demonstrate that its server-side Java performance is well ahead of CGI, PERL, and the rest of the ad hoc infrastructure driving most commercial Web sites today. BEA provides customers with a solid execution environment designed to protect their investment, reduce deployment risks, and integrate with the best-of-breed tools," Chuang said.
BEA WebLogic Server 4.0 Performance
In the extensive performance testing that BEA has completed to date, BEA WebLogic Server 4.0 has been shown to consistently deliver 2,627 interactions (Web page views) per second, or 227 million interactions per day. The daily load of Yahoo!, the world`s most-visited Web site, was quoted in December at approximately 167 million interactions per day. BEA modeled its tests after an industry-standard benchmark and achieved these numbers running on three Microsoft Windows NT four-way server CPUs, representing less than $50,000 in hardware. In these tests BEA WebLogic Server 4.0 consistently supported over 10,000 concurrent users. The BEA WebLogic Server clustering architecture has been carefully designed to scale linearly, even when handling the advanced replication of EJB components.
Key Features of BEA WebLogic Server 4.0 With release 4.0, BEA WebLogic Server delivers the following key features:
* "Web-page" and "component" clustering. BEA WebLogic Server is the only Web application server to provide both Web-page and EJB component clustering. Web-page clustering handles transparent replication, load-balancing, and failover for the logic that generates responses to Web clients (for example, the result of ordering the contents of a Web shopping cart). Component clustering handles the complexities of replication, load balancing, and failover for EJBs and provides customers with seamless recovery of stateful objects like EJB entity beans. Both Web-page and component clustering are critical for delivering scalability and availability for Internet applications.
* Integration with development tools. BEA WebLogic Server 4.0 deployment services are tightly integrated with Symantec`s Visual Café wizard-based EJB development tool. Other IDE integrations include IBM Visual Age, Inprise JBuilder, and Microsoft Visual J++. WebLogic Server is also integrated with best-of-breed Java development tools from InLine Software for EJB modeling and generation and The Object People for object-to-relational mapping of EJB components (see separate release).
Integration with leading databases. BEA WebLogic Server 4.0 provides access to leading relational databases (e.g., Oracle, Informix, IBM DB2, Microsoft SQL Server, and Sybase), as well as to object database management systems (ODBMSs) from Object Design, Inc. (ODI), Versant, and Ardent.
High availability through dynamic operations management. Servers in a cluster can be brought up or down without interrupting operation of the other cluster nodes. Servers can join or leave the cluster dynamically.
Integration with BEA TUXEDO. BEA WebLogic Server 4.0 provides enhanced integration with BEA TUXEDO and BEA WebLogic Enterprise (formerly BEA M3). This integration enables customers to use the high performance, distributed transaction management capabilities of BEA TUXEDO and BEA WebLogic Enterprise to complement BEA WebLogic Server 4.0 by building EJB components that wrap services from these other products.
BEA WebLogic Server and the BEA WebLogic Product Line
The BEA WebLogic product line is a family of three application servers - WebLogic Enterprise, WebLogic Server, and WebLogic Express each tailored to solve the urgent IT challenges for assembling, integrating, deploying, and managing e-commerce and Web-ready "bet-your-business" applications. BEA WebLogic Express links Web clients and databases. BEA WebLogic Server is an ideal platform for critical e-business Java applications. BEA WebLogic Enterprise is the solution when multiple programming languages or CORBA standards are needed or when traditional data center capabilities are required.
Availability
BEA WebLogic Server 4.0 is available today on HP-UX, IBM AIX, IBM AS/400, Compaq Tru64 Unix, Microsoft Windows NT, and Sun Solaris. Clustering is offered as a separately priced deployment feature. Interested developers can obtain a free evaluation copy of the product by downloading it from http://www.beasys.com/weblogicserver4/, or by contacting a local sales representative at weblogic-sales@beasys.com or 1-800-WEBLOGIC.WEBLOGIC.
@EditorNote = BEA Systems
BEA Systems, Inc., is a leading provider of mission-critical middleware and Internet solutions for the world`s largest enterprises. BEA`s product line enables end-to-end, integrated solutions for electronic-commerce and business-critical systems. BEA products include BEA TUXEDO, the industry`s market share leader for distributed transaction management software; BEA WebLogic, a leading application server family providing CORBA, EJB, and enterprise Java solutions; and BEA eLink, a solution for integrating enterprise applications. BEA also provides a comprehensive suite of consulting, education, and customer support offerings to preserve and maximize your technology investment in BEA products. BEA is headquartered in San Jose, Calif., and has 50 offices in 24 countries. The company`s common stock trades on the Nasdaq National Market under the symbol ``BEAS.`` Additional information on BEA is available on the Internet at http://www.beasys.com.
BEA, TUXEDO, and WebLogic are registered trademarks of BEA Systems, Inc. eLink is a trademark of BEA Systems, Inc. Java, Enterprise JavaBeans, and JDBC are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All other company and product names may be trademarks of the company with which they are associated.
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BEA Systems
BEA Systems, Inc., is a leading provider of mission-critical middleware and Internet solutions for the world`s largest enterprises. BEA`s product line enables end-to-end, integrated solutions for electronic-commerce and business-critical systems. BEA products include BEA TUXEDO, the industry`s market share leader for distributed transaction management software; BEA WebLogic, a leading application server family providing CORBA, EJB, and enterprise Java solutions; and BEA eLink, a solution for integrating enterprise applications. BEA also provides a comprehensive suite of consulting, education, and customer support offerings to preserve and maximize your technology investment in BEA products. BEA is headquartered in San Jose, Calif., and has 50 offices in 24 countries. The company`s common stock trades on the Nasdaq National Market under the symbol ``BEAS.`` Additional information on BEA is available on the Internet at http://www.beasys.com.
BEA, TUXEDO, and WebLogic are registered trademarks of BEA Systems, Inc. eLink is a trademark of BEA Systems, Inc. Java, Enterprise JavaBeans, and JDBC are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All other company and product names may be trademarks of the company with which they are associated.
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