A
number of very smart people seem to think that the introduction of
WebLogic is going to be a major "game changer" for
E-Business Suite DBAs. There is certainly some truth to that
thought. WebLogic is a completely different animal than the Apache
or Oracle Application Server that we've gotten accustomed to in
E-Business Suite 11i and R12.
But
consider this. I suspect that most environments are fairly vanilla.
When it comes to the basic degree of interaction that an E-Business
Suite DBA has with the Applications Server, I suspect that the change
will be largely transparent. Consider what you do with the current
Applications Server product. Start and stop? That's done through
AutoConfig managed scripts. Basic configuration for EBS? That's
handled through AutoConfig. Why would we expect these things to
change just because they've changed out the tool?
What
will it change?
I'm
certain that the log files will be different. The naming convention
will probably change and the location of the files might change. The
content of the files will certainly be different. As will the
configuration files (but, again, I would expect those to be
AutoConfig managed).
The
big place where you will notice the WebLogic change (from an
Administrator standpoint) is if you're trying to do something else
with it. If you're dealing with Discoverer or deploying APEX, for
example, you'll certainly get up-close-and-personal with WebLogic.
So,
should you be afraid of the WebLogic change? I don't think so. Yes,
custom deployments (anything that actually requires you to
"deep-dive" into the configuration of WebLogic) will have a
learning curve. That said, many of the components of Oracle Fusion
Middleware already use WebLogic and, if you're doing any custom
deployments, odds are you're also already dealing with WebLogic
elsewhere and will have some familiarity by the time you go to tie it
into E-Business Suite.
When
you factor in these things with the fact that WebLogic is a more
mature and overall better product than the current applications
server used in E-Business Suite, I think that the change is probably
a good thing.
– James
