You'll begin this week by studying the concepts and features of application servers to help you better understand the features of WebLogic Server 7.0. Then you'll take a quick tour of WebLogic Server 7.0's new features, additions, and tools. These features include the entire suite of J2EE technologies that you will be studying over the coming weeks.
On Day 2 you'll study Java 2 Enterprise Edition concepts and technologies. You'll cover the three areas the J2EE specification spans: components, containers, and connectors. Next you'll take a quick look at the different technologies that make up the J2EE specification: Java Servlet API, JavaServer Pages, JSP tag libraries, Enterprise JavaBeans, Java Transaction API, Java Message Services API, and the J2EE Connector Architecture. Finally, you'll learn about the two primary architectures used for n-tier Web applications: the Model I and Model II (Model View Controller) architectures. The day ends by outlining the requirements and design of the airline ticket booking system case study application, which you'll build incrementally over the next three weeks.
The first technology supported by WebLogic Server, Java servlets, is discussed on Day 3. The day begins with a brief discussion of the concepts of Web-enabled applications like CGI scripts and a comparison of Java servlets and CGI. Then you'll look at WebLogic Server's support for Java servlets. The day concludes with the design and development of a sample book shopping servlet application that implements the different session-handling techniques supported in WebLogic Server. You'll also learn how to deploy Java servlets in WebLogic Server.
Day 4 covers advanced concepts of Java servlets like inter-servlet communication, filters, and listeners. At the end of the day, you'll write the first building block of the case study MVC application: the AirlineTicketBookingServlet controller servlet.
Day 5 covers the basics of JavaServer Pages and how JSPs are related to Java servlets. Next you'll study the important tags available in JSPs. At the end of the day, you'll build the entire book shopping Java servlet in JSP to contrast building a Web application using JavaServer Pages against one created with Java Servlets.
JSP custom tag libraries, an advanced concept of JavaServer Pages, are discussed on Day 6. You'll study the different steps involved in building custom tags and learn about the custom tag libraries provided in WebLogic Server. After this you'll build your own custom tag library and incorporate it in the book shopping cart application. At the end of the day, you'll build the second layer of the airline ticket booking system application: the view, consisting of a set of JSPs.
Day 7 focuses on Java Database Connectivity (JDBC). The day begins with a quick overview of JDBC and the different drivers available. Then you'll learn in detail how to configure a JDBC connection pool for a database in WebLogic Server. In addition, you'll study the other ways to define connections to databases: MultiPool and DataSource.
