Platform Issues

In this section we will be discussing version 6.1 of the WebLogic server. Two variations of version 6.1 are available.

The first variation takes advantage of the J2EE version 1.3 features. In the absence of a pressing argument to the contrary, this is the version you will probably want to install. However, for licensing reasons having little to do with WebLogic, the company is also compelled to provide a version certified to run on J2EE version 1.2. It is the same software, with the obvious exception that those features that rely on J2EE 1.3 ^[2] have been disabled. My recommendation is to start with the J2EE 1.3 compatible version and treat the other as a fallback.

^[2] Specifically including Enterprise JavaBeans 2.0, Java Server Pages 1.2, Servlet 2.3, and J2EE Connector Architecture 1.0.

Operating System

Certified versions of WebLogic Server are available for virtually all the major operating systems, including:

Unix
AIX	Sun
HP-UX	Red Hat Linux
SCO Unixware	Caldera OpenUNIX 8.0
AS/400
Windows
Windows 2000 Pro.	Windows NT 4.0

The sheer number of operating systems for which WebLogic is available is testimony to the portability of Java code. Recall that WebLogic is a 100% Java application and thus is run by the nominally platform-independent Java Virtual Machine rather than by a platform-specific compiler. Historically, porting to such a dizzying variety of operating systems was possible only through heroic efforts on the part of the software development staff.

A complete list of supported platforms is available from:

http://e-docs.bea.com/wls/platforms/index.html

Hardware Requirements

Again, WebLogic can be run on virtually any hardware platform. Note, however, that the server will need to meet certain minimum requirements in terms of RAM and disk space:

Windows

171 MB free disk space

128 MB RAM

Unix

210 MB free disk space

128 MB RAM

Other Requirements

As implied earlier, you will need to obtain Java 1.2 or 1.3.1, depending on which version of WebLogic you plan to install. Java is freely available for download from

http://java.sun.com

In order to run the Administration console, you will need a relatively modern Web browserNetscape 4.7x or Internet Explorer versions 5 and above will suffice.