Note that there are several further platform components we were unable to test as part of this review. These include TopLink (a persis-tence layer providing OR mapping), Oracle Application Server Portal, and Oracle Application Server Business Intelligence.

What Sets Oracle Application Server 10g Apart
Let's focus some attention on functionality details, which, in my opinion, set Oracle Application Server 10g apart from other J2EE platforms such as IBM WebSphere and BEA WebLogic (also part of our evaluation). This functionality includes extensive caching technology, which yielded unexpected performance benefits. Although we have not had the opportunity to use the native BPEL capabilities of the BPEL Process Manager, we have been impressed with what we've seen in our evaluations.

As for caching, we tested both Oracle Application Server Web Cache and Java Object Cache (JOC) caching technologies. Used at the network edge, Web Cache combines caching and load balancing. It intercepts HTTP requests and responds with a cached page if one is available. If one is not available, it passes the request back to the least busy application server. Our expectations for performance improvements on our dynamic e-commerce Web site were not high, but Web Cache also has the ability to cache dynamically generated, next-to-static Web content. The result: on Alamo.com, Web Cache serves 80% of all requests, of which 25% are served in compressed form - a clear performance boost!

We also reviewed JOC, which is part of the OC4J J2EE container. JOC provides an API and service for managing cache objects within J2EE apps. We truly loved this feature because it increases performance, especially in a clustered environment. Oracle contributed this innovation to the J2EE community as JSR 107 (JCache API).

Let's not end this review without talking about what Oracle sees as the "crown jewel" of the Application Server 10g platform, Oracle's next-generation process integration product, the Oracle BPEL Process Manager (see Figure 2). Because it's a standards-based BPEL engine, it is a comprehensive offering, not only for its standards-based Web services orchestration capabilities, but also for the built-in WSIF bindings that enable BPEL to orchestrate nearly any legacy system as if it were a Web service - without having to explicitly wrap or publish it as one.

SOA and Web services are certainly the future. With a native BPEL implementation in Oracle BPEL Process Manager, Oracle is among the first to offer the crucial service orchestration capability needed to build service-oriented applications easily. Coupled with a comprehensive and integrated SOA platform in Oracle Application Server 10g, Oracle is a compelling choice for realizing enterprise SOA!

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• Figure 1
• Figure 2