4 Upgrading Your Java EE Applications

4.2.1 General Guidelines for Selecting Your Development Tools

For Java EE applications that do not take advantage of Oracle technologies, such as the Oracle Application Development Framework (ADF), Oracle Metadata Services (MDS), Oracle SOA Suite, or Oracle WebCenter, you can make the code changes using any development tools you are accustomed to using.

However, if you want to use any Oracle technologies, Oracle recommends the use of Oracle JDeveloper, an integrated development environment (IDE) that makes it much easier and efficient to develop, test, and deploy ADF, SOA, and WebCenter applications for Oracle Fusion Middleware.

4.2.2 Using the SmartUpgrade Oracle JDeveloper Extension and Command-Line Tool

Besides offering the ability to easily develop applications that take advantage of Oracle techologies, such as Oracle ADF, Oracle SOA, and Oracle WebCenter, Oracle JDeveloper also provides an extension that can help you upgrade your OC4J applications to Oracle WebLogic Server.

The SmartUpgrade extension allows you to use Oracle JDeveloper to analyze an existing enterprise archive (EAR) file and generate a SmartUpgrade report that steps you through a series of "findings". Each finding provides advice for how to modfiy the applicatoin so you can successfully deploy it on Oracle WebLogic Server.

For more information, refer to the Oracle Fusion Middleware SmartUpgrade User's Guide.

4.4.1 Comparison of OC4J and Oracle WebLogic Server Deployment Descriptors

If you are familiar with the standard deployment descriptors and the OC4J-specific descriptors, you can use Table 4-1 to locate the equivalent deployment descriptor files in the Oracle WebLogic Server environment.

4.4.2 Guidelines and Resources for Upgrading Deployment Descriptors for Oracle WebLogic Server

To prepare your applications for WebLogic Server deployment, you must remove OC4J-specific deployment descriptors and replace them with their equivalent WebLogic Server specific settings.

For a successful deployment, examine each of the deployment descriptors and perform one the following actions for each deployment descriptor feature used by the application:

• If the OC4J deployment descriptor feature has a direct mapping within the equivalent WebLogic Server specific deployment descriptor, then use the equivalent WebLogic Server descriptor with the appropriate elements and values.

• If the OC4J deployment descriptor feature does not have a direct mapping, then review the appropriate Oracle WebLogic Server documentation.

  Features that are not directly mapped to Oracle WebLogic Server deployment descriptors can often be achieved by configuring the WebLogic domain accordingly.

Table 4-2 provides a list of documentation resources that will help you upgrade your deployment descriptors to Oracle WebLogic Server.

4.4.3 About Security Elements in Deployment Descriptor Files

If you use the suggested procedures in Section 5.3.6, "Configuring Security on Oracle WebLogic Server", then the security configurations, including authentication methods, security constraints, and EJB method permissions, that are contained in standard Java EE application deployment descriptors, such as web.xml and ejb-jar.xml, can remain untouched for upgrade and will continue to function when the application is deployed to Oracle WebLogic Server.

For security configurations specified in OC4J specific descriptors (for example, security role mappings), see the WebLogic Server Security documentation to map each configuration to an element within the equivalent Oracle WebLogic Server deployment descriptor described in Section 4.4.1, "Comparison of OC4J and Oracle WebLogic Server Deployment Descriptors".

4.4.4 Upgrading Deployment Plans

Deployment plans are a standard Java EE server capability supported by both Oracle WebLogic Server and OC4J. However, deployment plans are not portable between application servers. When you upgrade from OC4J to Oracle WebLogic Server, you must regenerate and save your application deployment plans saved as part of the deployment process on Oracle WebLogic Server. Alternatively, you can construct new deployment plans using the weblogic.PlanGenerator command line tool.

For more information, see "Overview of weblogic.PlanGenerator" in Oracle Fusion Middleware Deploying Applications to Oracle WebLogic Server.

4.5.1 APIs Available With the Java Required Files (JRF) Domain Template

Oracle Fusion Middleware11g provides an Oracle WebLogic Server domain template, referred to as the Oracle Java Required Files (JRF) template. You can use this template to create (or extend) an Oracle WebLogic Server domain. The resulting domain contains an updated version of some of the key capabilities and features of Oracle Application Server 10g.

For more information, see Section 5.1.4, "Using the Java Required Files (JRF) Domain Template".

Specifically, the JRF template enables support for the following Oracle Application Server features in Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g:

• Dynamic Monitoring System (DMS)

• Diagnostics and Logging Framework (ODL)

• Oracle HTTP Client

• Oracle Java Object Cache

• Oracle XML

• Oracle Security Developer Tools

• Oracle Platform Security Services (OPSS)

• Oracle Globalization Development Kit

Applications that use these APIs can take advantage of a JRF-extended domain and will not require any modification beyond those necessary as a result of potential updates to the APIs.

For more information, see Chapter 5, "Upgrading Your Java EE Environment".

4.5.2 Other Oracle WebLogic Server API Requirements

Table 4-3 provide a summary of additional Oracle Application Server 10g APIs and a summary of how they are affected by an upgrade to Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g.

4.6.1 General Guidelines for Upgrading to Oracle WebLogic Server JAX-RPC and JAX-WS Web Services

In general, to upgrade your Web services from OC4J to Oracle WebLogic Server, you must upgrade your application to use the equivalent Java Web services API on WebLogic Server:

• For most OC4J Web services applications, this means upgrading from OC4J JAX-RPC Web services to Oracle WebLogic Server JAX-RPC Web services. In general, the JAX-RPC upgrade process consists of re-generating the Java artifacts on Oracle WebLogic Server to the identical underlying Java business logic using Oracle WebLogic Server Web services tooling.

• If you are using an older release of OC4J, where Web services standards did not exist within Java EE, Oracle recommends that you upgrade to the Java EE 5.0 standard JAX-WS on Oracle WebLogic Server.

For more information, see:

• "How Do I Choose Between JAX-WS and JAX-RPC?" in Oracle Fusion Middleware Introducing WebLogic Web Services for Oracle WebLogic Server.

4.6.2 Generating Oracle WebLogic Server Web Services From an OC4J WSDL

For absolute fidelity to a specific OC4J Web services public API (its WDSL), you also can regenerate the Web services on WebLogic Server from the OC4J WSDL and deploy the resulting Web service on WebLogic Server. This process is referred to as the "top-down" approach to developing Web services.

After producing the equivalent and deployable Web service artifacts on Oracle WebLogic Server, you can then apply the equivalent quality of service (QOS) capabilities, such as WS-Security and WS-ReliableMessaging as a secondary administrative operation.

4.6.3 Web Services Specifications Supported by OC4J and Oracle WebLogic Server

Table 4-4 compares the Web services standard specifications supported by OC4J and Oracle WebLogic Server. Note that Oracle WebLogic Server supports all of the Web services standards and specifications supported by OC4J, except for WS-Reliability.