Choosing an Edition

Like most web application servers, Oracle 10g AS is available in a number of different editions, ranging from a small development-only J2EE server, to the full-fledged Enterprise installation. All of these include the basic J2EE containers (called Oracle 10g AS Containers for J2EE or OC4J), which provide support for Servlets, JavaServer Pages (JSPs), Enterprise JavaBeans (EJBs) and other standard J2EE technologies. Other, larger and more expensive versions include additional non-J2EE features such as Oracle's modified Apache web server, longtime Oracle products such as Portal, Forms, Reports, and Discoverer, Oracle's Identity Management products such as Oracle Internet Directory and SSO, and advanced features for high-performance and high-availability sites such as Web Cache and Clustering. There's no one size fits all so it's important to tailor the edition to the needs of your application. Here's a list of the editions of 10g AS that are available:

• OC4J Standalone (Oracle Application Server Containers for J2EE). This pure-Java, development-oriented edition supports all of the J2EE technologies with very little overhead. Instead of formal management or monitoring tools, it relies on commandline and file-based configuration. Its small installation size and memory footprint make it ideal for developer workstations. However, it's not intended for use in production systems. If you do choose to use it in production, you still must purchase one of the three editions described in this list. This version of the product is the primary focus of the development and deployment chapters of this book (Chapters 214).

• Java Edition. This low-end commercial edition includes all of the OC4J Standalone features and adds a web-based management tool, a more robust HTTP server (based on the open -source Apache web server), support for non-J2EE object-relational mapping through TopLink, and five licenses for JDeveloper, a full-featured Java IDE.

• Standard Edition. This edition includes everything found in the Java edition and adds Portal, SSO, and Content Management capabilities. While the Java Edition is well suited for independent J2EE applications, these more advanced features allow you to link lots of different applications across an enterprise system, presenting one common view to users (often through an Enterprise Information Portal or EIP).

• Enterprise Edition. This high-end edition includes everything found in the Standard Edition and adds web caching (Oracle Web Cache), enterprise integration (including Oracle SSO), directory services (OID), data analysis and reporting (Business Intelligence through Oracle Reports and Discoverer), and Oracle Forms. Additionally, this version provides the ability to implement clustered J2EE instances fronted by Web Cache, which provides the maximum load-balancing and high-availability benefits. These features give you additional scalability, interoperability and real-time analysis while being the deployment vehicle for longtime Oracle products such as Forms, Reports, and Discoverer. This Enterprise Edition generally requires an infrastructure database (provided with the product installation) to support the advanced features. It's this product that is the focus of the administration chapters of this book (Chapters 1521).

The following table gives you a quick comparison of the cost, size, and features of each edition, at the time of writing (June 2004). Each of the features listed will be described in more detail later in this chapter.

Table 1-1: Comparison of Oracle 10g AS Editions

Feature	OC4J Standalone	Java Edition	Standard Edition	Enterprise Edition
List price	Included with each of the other editions	$5,000/CPU	$10,000/CPU	$20,000/CPU
Download size	28 MB	Over 500 MB	Not individually downloadable	Over 2 GB
Configuration type	Manual	Enterprise Mgr	Enterprise Mgr	Enterprise Mgr
J2EE containers	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
HTTP server		Yes	Yes	Yes
JDeveloper		Yes	Yes	Yes
TopLink		Yes	Yes	Yes
Application Server Control		Yes	Yes	Yes
Portal			Yes	Yes
Single Sign-On			Yes	Yes
Content Management			Yes	Yes
Web Caching				Yes
Integration				Yes
Oracle Internet Directory				Yes
Discoverer				Yes
Reports Service				Yes
Personalization				Yes
Wireless				Yes

Deciding Which Features You Need

In the end, the Standard and Enterprise offerings are just convenient package deals on a number of extra, (non-J2EE) add-on products. Thus, when choosing an edition, your first step should be to decide which of these add-on products you actually need. Then you should compare the bundled Oracle options with competing products from other vendors to determine which are the most appropriate and cost effective for your needs.

For example, if you'll be running a number of intranet applications within Oracle 10g AS and would like users to be able to use the same username and password for each of them, then you'll probably be interested in SSO functionality. In this case, one option is to purchase the Oracle 10g AS Standard Edition and use the built-in Oracle SSO features. However, if Oracle SSO doesn't meet your needs, then you can always stay with the Oracle 10g AS Java Edition and buy a third-party SSO integration product such as RSA ClearTrust.

One important factor to consider is your overall commitment to the Oracle 10g AS platform. Pure J2EE applications are very portable, but as you begin integrating additional Oracle products, you may become "locked in" to Oracle 10g AS and find it harder to migrate to other application servers. If you think that you may eventually move to another vendor, like BEA or IBM, then it may be worthwhile to choose third-party add-on products that integrate well with multiple application servers. On the other hand, if you're sure that your applications will be running on Oracle for years to come, then the integrated management and discount pricing of the Oracle add-on products may save a lot of time and money. This is especially true for companies that already use Oracle for their database. One of the compelling arguments for choosing Oracle 10g AS, if you already use Oracle databases, is the tight integration of the database with the application server, and the performance and administrative benefits that this can bring.

The following criteria in Table 1-2 may be helpful when making your decision.

Table 1-2: Tips for Choosing an Oracle 10g AS Edition

If You're Building and Deploying	Consider
One J2EE application	Java Edition
Several unrelated J2EE applications	Java Edition
Corporate intranet or portal	Standard Edition (or third-party portal and SSO products)
Applications that integrate with many external systems or business partners	Enterprise Edition (or third-party integration products)
Oracle PL/SQL Web Toolkit	Standard or Enterprise Edition
Oracle Portal	Standard or Enterprise Edition
Oracle Forms, Reports, Discoverer	Enterprise Edition using Oracle Business Intelligence option
High-traffic e-commerce sites	Enterprise Edition using Oracle Web Cache
High availability sites	Enterprise Edition using Clustering features
Applications that need to tie into enterprisewide identity management systems	Enterprise Edition (or third-party LDAP and SSO products)
Applications available to wireless devices	Enterprise Edition (or third-party wireless gateways)