What's New in This Guide?

This preface introduces the new and changed administrative features of Oracle Fusion Middleware that are described in this guide, and provides pointers to additional information.

New Features for 11g Release 1 (11.1.1)

11g Release 1 (11.1.1) includes many new and changed features, including the following:

• The inclusion of Oracle WebLogic Server in Oracle Fusion Middleware, replacing Oracle Containers for Java EE. Oracle WebLogic Server is an enterprise-ready Java application server that supports the deployment of mission-critical applications in a robust, secure, highly available, and scalable environment. For an overview of Oracle WebLogic Server and the Oracle Fusion Middleware environment, see Section 2.1.

• New commands for many functions. Many components and services now use Oracle WebLogic Server Scripting Tool (WLST) commands. For example, commands to configure log files are WLST commands. See Section 3.5.1 for general information about invoking WLST.

• The Oracle Metadata Service (MDS) Repository, a particular type of repository that contains metadata for certain types of deployed applications. This includes custom Java EE applications developed by your organization and some Oracle Fusion Middleware component applications, such as Oracle B2B. For information about the MDS Repository, see Section 11.3.

• Wallet and Keystore Management: 11g Release 1 (11.1.1) provides new features for managing Oracle wallets and JKS keystores:

  • Password-protected Wallets

    When creating a wallet in prior releases, the administrator was always required to create a password-protected wallet. Once this wallet was created, the administrator could optionally create an auto-login wallet. Components needed the auto-login wallet at run-time. Without an auto-login wallet, the password had to be specified in the component configuration file in an encrypted or obfuscated format.

    In 11g Release 1 (11.1.1) this behavior has changed. Every time you create a password-protected wallet, an auto-login wallet is automatically created as well. This enables management tasks to be performed on the password-protected wallet, while components can use the auto-login wallet at run-time. This eliminates the need to store passwords in configuration files.

    To take advantage of this feature when creating a wallet with Fusion Middleware Control, you need to uncheck the auto-login check-box and enter the wallet password. Remember that this creates both the password-protected and auto-login wallets.

    A new type of wallet has also been introduced, which is a standalone auto-login wallet. This wallet can be used for both management and run time without requiring a password. To create this wallet when creating a wallet with Fusion Middleware Control, check the auto-login check box. You do not need to provide a password for this type of wallet.

    Note:

    The standalone auto-login wallet is the default choice for wallet creation.

  • Wallet and Keystore Management Tools

    In prior releases, Oracle Wallet Manager was the graphical interface tool and orapki the command-line tool to manage Oracle wallets.

    In 11g Release 1 (11.1.1), Oracle Wallet Manager has been discontinued and replaced by Fusion Middleware Control, which is a web-based interface. WLST is the new command-line tool. You can use both these tools to manage not just Oracle wallets, but also JKS keystore files. An additional advantage of these new tools is that they allow you to manage keystores centrally across instances, since they work in the context of a management server.

    You can still use orapki to manage both Oracle wallet and JKS keystore, but only local changes (on a per-instance basis) are possible. orapki is the only tool that allows management of PKCS#11 wallets and CRLs.

    The following table shows the different tools and their capabilities:

    Tool	Oracle Wallet	Java Keystore (JKS)	Local Updates	Distributed Updates	PKCS11	CRL	Graphical UI	Command Line
    orapki (10g, 11g)	x	x	x		x	x		x
    Oracle Wallet Manager (not in 11g)	x		x		x		x
    Fusion Middleware Control (new in 11g)	x	x		x			x
    WLST (new in 11g)	x	x		x				x