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Oracle announced a new version of its Cloud Application Foundation along with new versions of some of its core Java technologies—Oracle Application Development Framework, Oracle JDeveloper and Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse.
Essentially Oracle announced the 12c releases of Oracle Application Development Framework, Oracle JDeveloper, and Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse.
Oracle’s Cloud Application Foundation provides a unified platform across conventional and cloud environments, which helps customers deliver next-generation applications, simplify operations, accelerate time-to-market, lower their total cost of ownership and derive more value from their current application infrastructure.
Cloud Application Foundation integrates application server and in-memory data grid capabilities into a foundation for cloud computing, Mike Lehmann, vice president of product management at Oracle, told eWEEK. It consists of Oracle WebLogic Server 12.1.2 and in Oracle Coherence 12.1.2.
“Cloud is becoming a key enabler for companies to introduce new products, reduce cost and increase productivity,” said Cameron Purdy, vice president of development at Oracle, in a statement. “Oracle Cloud Application Foundation offers a unified platform across conventional and cloud environments, so customers can leverage their existing investment in Oracle WebLogic Server and Oracle Coherence and move to the Cloud at a pace that meets the needs of their business.”
“This is a major wave of releases that is the culmination of a lot of work on the part of the database and middleware team at Oracle,” Al Hilwa, an analyst at IDC, told eWEEK. “It is one of the most integrated releases they have ever shipped in that there are several points of deep integration across the layers. I also think the multi-tenancy aspects provide a good basis to implement cloud software in a cost-effective way, which is a key focus area for cloud providers.”
Oracle WebLogic Server 12.1.2 uses dynamic clustering for cloud elasticity and more efficient resource management, as well as simplified Java Messaging Service (JMS) administration for operational efficiency. The app server also provides certification and integration with Oracle Database 12c, including support for pluggable database access and database application continuity capabilities for increased availability. In addition, it helps increase developer productivity with enhanced support for Apache Maven for build and lifecycle management, as well as for HTML5, Java and WebSockets for development of rich, mobile and cross-platform applications, Lehmann said. And it provides declarative JSON or XML-based access to enterprise data sources via REST through Oracle TopLink data services.
Oracle Coherence 12.1.2 is Oracle’s in-memory data caching solution. It scales applications to meet mobile and cloud demands. Coherence also powers applications with real-time availability of database changes automatically through Oracle Coherence GoldenGate HotCache and improves cluster lifecycle management by leveraging the Oracle WebLogic Management Framework with Managed Coherence Servers, Lehmann said.
Moreover, Coherence enhances the customer experience with Oracle Coherence Live Events, a simplified event processing platform, and adapts to spikes in user demand automatically with dynamic proxy thread pooling. And it optimizes the tradeoff between performance and data consistency with flexible high-availability options and delivers multi-data center solutions with site-safe and rack-safe enhancements.
Oracle WebLogic Server, Oracle Coherence and Oracle Web Tier have a new common install, update, patch and provisioning framework, along with standardized administrative tooling, which further improves the customer experience and reduces operational complexity, Lehmann said. And Oracle WebLogic Server and Oracle Coherence are optimized to run on Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud. Oracle Exalogic is hardware and software engineered together to provide extreme performance, reliability and scalability for Oracle, Java and other business applications.
Oracle Updates Mobile Tools for Cloud, Mobile Development
“Oracle WebLogic Server supports our approach to Enterprise Service Oriented Architecture solutions and Enterprise infrastructure systems and services,” said Steve Link, National Air Space (NAS) Enterprise Messaging Service (NEMS) program chief systems engineer at Harris Corp., in a statement. “We’re really looking forward to new features in the Oracle WebLogic Server 12.1.2. For example, we expect the common installation and patching tools across Oracle Fusion Middleware components to improve efficiency in our operations and further reduce the costs of deploying new services and maintaining the enterprise infrastructure. Also, Web Sockets is a new HTML5 technology in WebLogic that we anticipate will help us enable enhanced device connectivity, particularly with mobile devices.”
Meanwhile, developers are under pressure to develop applications faster and across more channels than before. To address this need, Oracle has delivered new releases of its Java development tools and framework that enable developers to rapidly and efficiently build multichannel—Web, cloud and on-premises—applications.
The new releases enable easier development of Web user interfaces for tablets and other gesture-based devices; extend support for REST, JPA/EJB business services and HTML5 technologies; and provide improved support for Maven for simpler build and continuous integration.
Providing a declarative and visual development experience, along with an end-to-end integrated development framework, developers benefit from freedom of choice and more productivity, enabling them to build better applications faster, Oracle said. A multichannel Java EE-based development framework, Oracle ADF is used to develop Oracle Fusion Applications as well as other Oracle products and applications. Customers use the framework to accelerate their development and create richer custom applications that can be deployed across multiple channels.
Oracle ADF protects organizations from technology shifts by providing an abstraction layer on top of specific technologies, allowing applications to adopt new UI technologies through support within the framework rather than requiring them to be rewritten, Lehmann said.
“Oracle’s Java development tools and ADF take the productivity of enterprise application developers to the next level,” said Chris Tonas, vice president of Application Development Tools at Oracle, in a statement. “With the latest releases, Oracle is providing the most complete and integrated set of application development tools to provide developers with the best choices to support enterprise development with a fast and productive environment.”
Oracle ADF 12c adds new features and extended development tools support in the new versions of Oracle JDeveloper 12c and Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse 12c. JDeveloper is a free, integrated development environment (IDE) that simplifies the development of Java-based enterprise applications. It offers end-to-end development to Oracle Fusion Middleware and Oracle Fusion Applications with support for the full development lifecycle.
The latest version delivers improved look and feel and window management to provide a more responsive interface. A Dependency Explorer helps users understand the impact of changes in code. The new JDeveloper also features enhanced Maven and Git support for better application lifecycle management; new memory and CPU profilers that help create faster and more efficient applications; a new JSF visual editor, support for HTML5 and CSS3 in the code editor, and a new integrated Swing editor that provide easier development of Web and desktop interfaces; and the new Oracle WebLogic Server 12c, providing a simpler develop/test/debug/deploy process.
The Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse is a free set of Eclipse-based plug-ins that enable developers to build Oracle ADF, Java EE and Spring-based enterprise applications for the Oracle Fusion Middleware platform and the Oracle Cloud. The new Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse 12c enhancements to simplify development include: Iterative development support for Oracle WebLogic Server 12c; enhanced support for Oracle Coherence 12c configuration and deployment; support for Oracle ADF 12c and Oracle ADF Essentials 12c; extended Maven support, for easier build process development; and new features to simplify REST services development and consumption, Oracle said.