Summary

In this chapter, you've seen that Oracle Application Server is available in three commercial editions: Java, Standard, and Enterprise. The Java Edition includes everything necessary for the development and deployment of J2EE applications. The Standard and Enterprise Editions bundle additional web application server components to support both J2EE and non-J2EE applications, traditional Oracle products (for example Portal, Forms, Reports, and Discoverer), high-performance and high-availability sites with Web Cache and Clustering, and Oracle Single Sign-On with OID integration. Whether your system is large or small, there's likely an Oracle 10g AS configuration to meet those needs.

As with BEA WebLogic and IBM WebSphere, Oracle would like you to buy into its complete application server "platform." The more you use and depend on server-specific add-ons like Oracle SSO and Web Cache, the more likely it is that you'll stay with the Oracle application server product line for years to come. This integration offers many benefits, especially for shops that are already deeply entrenched in the Oracle product line. You may well decide that it's worth the risk of getting locked in to a certain vendor in order to take advantage of all these integrated features. However, for pure J2EE applications, you may determine that a smaller J2EE OC4J Standalone installation is more appropriate.

Whichever commercial edition you choose, you'll also get licenses for OC4J Standalone (the developer-oriented edition) and JDeveloper (Oracle's Java IDE). Both of these can greatly speed up the development of J2EE applications. In Chapter 2, you'll look at a variety of development strategies, customized to support the Oracle-specific features that you'll need later. In Chapters 1521, we'll cover the architecture, administration, and features available for the full Enterprise Edition 10g AS server.