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Dealing with Application Deadlocks

Wed, 07 Sep 2011 07:00:00 EDT

A deadlock is a situation where two or more threads are blocked while waiting to obtain locks that some of the other threads in the deadlock are holding. Deadlocks can occur when multiple threads need the same locks, at the same time, but obtain them in different order. For instance, if thread 1 locks A, and tries to lock B, and thread 2 has already locked B, and tries to lock A, a deadlock arises. Thread 1 can never get B, and thread 2 can never get A. In addition, neither of them will ever know. They will remain blocked on each of their objects, A and B, forever. The most common way of detecting whether your application is deadlocked is by analyzing thread dumps of the Java Virtual Machine while its in the state of appearing hung. A thread dump is a snapshot of the virtual machine's current state, including stack traces for each Java thread.

Thought Process on Upgrading WebLogic Server to 11g

Tue, 28 Dec 2010 11:00:00 EST

Modern enterprise IT infrastructure must keep pace with dynamic needs. As business changes, it allows customers to react quickly to maintain a competitive edge in the marketplace, often by leveraging new technologies to improve the bottom-line performance. Oracle WebLogic Server11g provides customers with expanded capabilities for interoperability, improvements in implementation and maintenance, and a wide array of performance enhancements. Customers can gain significant cost savings in operations, development and license management. Based on our experience acquired in a large-scale enterprise J2EE project, here are some of the best practices, known issues, and practical tips to make the upgrading work efficiently. This article contains information for technical managers, administrators and developers looking for the latest business and technical details about WebLogic upgradation.

Java Thread Dumps

Tue, 16 Nov 2010 11:00:00 EST

Software maintenance is a tedious and challenging job. As long as the software functions as expected, it looks great. Imagine the situation, your pager keeps buzzing in the midnight (Not a happy feeling, right?). Any software system, no matter how well it has been built and quality tested might get into run-time performance issues. The reasons can be within the functional boundary or can be from the external environment. Software systems are built on certain assumptions and pre-conceived notions. However, when they go live, the assumptions may turn out to be false causing the system to malfunction. In enterprise J2EE systems which generally have very large user base and involve interactions between heterogeneous systems, one of the general runtime issues reported is the system slowdown or system "hang". In such situations, the general trouble shooting pattern would be to analyze the Java thread dumps to isolate the threads which are causing the slow-down or hang. This article discusses the Java stack traces; anatomy of Java Threads and how to read thread dumps in general.

A Security Analysis of Cloud Computing

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 16:22:00 EST

With its ability to provide users dynamically scalable, shared resources over the Internet and avoid large upfront fixed costs, cloud computing promises to change the future of computing. However, storing a lot of data creates a situation similar to storing a lot of money, attracting more frequent assaults by increasingly skilled and highly motivated attackers. As a result, security is one – if not the – top issue that users have when considering cloud computing.

Build Reliability into Cloud Computing for SMBs

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 17:30:00 EDT

With IP networks taking on many new challenges from VoIP, rich multimedia and other high-bandwidth consuming and high-priority applications, SMBs need to be sure the network connectivity between their business and Cloud Computing provider is protected with controls for reliable Internet circuit availability, and for optimizing delivery of traffic to critical applications.

The Benefits of Virtualization in a Cloud

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 11:15:00 EDT

Small and medium businesses (SMBs) that have previously considered virtualization in the cloud but decided that it is too expensive or simply not viable should think again. Virtualization and cloud computing enables SMBs to green their operations and build IT infrastructures that are agile, resilient and highly scalable.

ESB Pattern: What Is the ESB?

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 12:00:00 EDT

ESB products emerged around 2002 from message-oriented middleware (MOM). Faced with market domination by IBM, MOM vendors were the first to jumpstart the ESB concept with the aim of developing a unique selling proposition. They added Web service and EAI capabilities on top of existing message broker capabilities, and with analyst support coined the term ESB. ESB was positioned as a low-cost alternative to EAI and panacea for all integration needs – tell-tale signs of hype.

Making Cloud a Reality for Enterprises via SOA Governance

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 08:15:00 EDT

Cloud computing is slowly gaining credibility and traction in the enterprise world. As giants such as Google and Amazon productize their massive cloud infrastructures, moving enterprise applications to the public cloud seems a more realistic possibility. The advantages of an enterprise application leveraging the public cloud sound like utopia – lowered total cost of ownership and overhead costs, ease of maintenance, inherent high availability and scalability that is built into the infrastructure.

An Introduction to Abbot

Sat, 18 Jul 2009 12:45:00 EDT

The common methods for functional GUI testing are the "record and execute" script technique and writing test programs for different scenarios. In the "record and execute," the test designer interacts with the GUI and all the events are recorded in a script. The script can later be replayed to re-create user interactions for a particular scenario. In the test programs, the test designer tries to understand and write tests for the various GUI decision points. This article discusses how Abbot can be used to quickly and effectively come up with a comprehensive GUI test framework for Swing GUI applications. Abbot (http://abbot.sourceforge.net/) is a JUnit extension for Swing GUI testing. It provides an interesting framework that can be used for test case generation as well as "record and execute" scripting.

REA Is Where RIA Becomes the Norm

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 22:00:00 EDT

Do you believe that the day when programmers could focus on one language in their jobs is gone? Thanks to the ever-changing IT landscape and the uncertain financial times, contemporary developers are expected to work with a wide range of platforms, frameworks, languages as essentially “masters of all and specialists in none.”

Innovate with SOA - I

Sat, 07 Mar 2009 22:00:00 EST

The 80/20 rule has negative implications for traditional IT reousrce allocation, with the 80 percent going to maintenance, and only 20 percent to innovation. How can you innovate with SOA to flip this ratio on its head?

Innovate with SOA - II

Sat, 07 Mar 2009 19:42:00 EST

Think in terms of all of your IT assets as part of a portfolio of innovation, and it becomes easier to think of you to put them to creative use that drives operational efficiency.

WSRP Really Works! - Part 2

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 18:00:00 EDT

A standard from OASIS called Web Services for Remote Portlets (WSRP) is used so portlets can be decoupled from a portal. In part one (JDJ, Volume. 13, issue 3) of this article, we introduced the relevant standards and specifications and then demonstrated WSRP's capabilities by consuming a WebSphere Portal portlet in WebLogic Portal.

Engelbart's Usability Dilemma: Efficiency vs Ease-of-Use

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 09:15:00 EDT

The mouse was the original idea of Doug Engelbart who was the head of the Augmentation Research Center (ARC) at Stanford Research Institute. Engelbart's philosophy is best embodied, in my opinion, in the design of another device that he invented, the five-finger keyboard - with keys like a piano, used by one hand. The problem was, Engelbart's five-finger keyboard and mouse combination was very difficult to learn.

JDJ Feature — Java API for XML Web Services (JAX-WS)

Wed, 27 Jun 2007 15:00:00 EDT

WebLogic Server 10 Technology Preview supports JEE 5. A feature of JEE 5 is the Java API for XML Web Services (JAX-WS) used to create Web Services and Web Service clients. WebLogic Server 10 provides the jwsc task to create the Web Service artifacts and the clientgen task to create the artifacts for Web Service clients. In this article we'll create an example JAX-WS 2.0 Web Service in WebLogic Server 10 Technology Preview.

Apache Beehive - Evolution of the BEA Workshop Runtime

Mon, 30 Jan 2006 13:00:00 EST

WebLogic Workshop 8.1 included both an application framework and an IDE to support developing enterprise applications using Page Flows, Controls, and annotated web services. This article describes some of the differences between the 8.1 Workshop runtime and the Apache Beehive project.

Navigating The Global Enterprise

Wed, 26 Oct 2005 04:45:00 EDT

In the five years that I have worked in Web solutions practices, a typical business problem has changed from 'we need a new Web site' to 'we need to regain control over our existing sites.' It's not uncommon for large corporations to have hundreds or even thousands of different Web sites spread over various service lines, geographies, and organizational boundaries. This presents challenges ranging from logistical and technical, to creative, business, and legal. This article focuses on solving the problem of ubiquitous navigation across diverse Webscapes.

Migrating a JBoss EJB Application to WebLogic

Mon, 08 Aug 2005 12:00:00 EDT

The JBoss open source application server is commonly used in the development phase of a J2EE project. In the production phase the commercial BEA WebLogic server is preferred because of its enhanced set of features. Without modifications, an application developed in JBoss does not deploy in WebLogic server.

Java Messaging Services Clustering Part 2

Tue, 21 Jun 2005 13:00:00 EDT

In Part 1 of this article series we discussed the fundamental aspects of clustering JMS resources in a WebLogic cluster. In Part 2 we will discuss JMS clustering in the context of design and configuration strategies that demonstrate how to create efficient JMS architectures.

A Look Ahead to the Service-Oriented World

Wed, 06 Apr 2005 00:00:00 EDT

BEA recently announced that it is broadening its SOA consulting practice, and that it has created a tool companies can use to learn about SOA and figure out how prepared they are to transition to the new architectural model.

Deploying WebLogic on Linux

Thu, 26 Feb 2004 00:00:00 EST

The rising business trend toward using open source software platforms has brought an increase in the number of critical applications deployed on Linux and BEA WebLogic. For many organizations, in fact, WebLogic deployments are their first major Linux installation.

TRIP.com's Online Travel Solution

Fri, 30 Jan 2004 07:47:57 EST

There are nearly 6 million business travelers using the Internet, responsible for more than $30 billion in travel expenses each year. For the Internet-based travel services industry, this is a tremendous revenue opportunity and the competition for this market is very intense.

Using the Java Message Service with BEA WebLogic

Fri, 30 Jan 2004 00:00:00 EST

In the last couple of years Sun has introduced a number of APIs targeted toward enterprise application development. One of the most exciting of these is the Java Message Service, or JMS. The JMS API is designed to do for messaging in the enterprise what JNDI does for naming and directory services and JDBC does for database access. JMS is an API that's designed to provide a common facility for enterprise messaging, leaving the underlying implementation of the messaging to whatever application server or other enterprise messaging software technology you wish to use. This is an exciting advance for those involved with the creation or use of message-oriented middleware (MOM) - and especially for Java developers who need to utilize such facilities within their own products. With JMS you should be able to write one set of code for messaging against the JMS API and then use it across any messaging system provider that offers JMS support.

EMALL: Building an Integration Application

Fri, 09 Jan 2004 00:00:00 EST

EMALL is a procurement portal for the U.S. Department of Defense. Defense and federal personnel use it to shop for items ranging from office supplies and equipment to weapons systems. The personnel have various levels of privileges to access classified catalogs and place orders.

Workshop and Portal

Fri, 09 Jan 2004 00:00:00 EST

BEA WebLogic Workshop is the single point of entry for developers to develop J2EE applications on the BEA platform. The WebLogic Workshop Platform Edition includes support for portal development on top of the standard WebLogic Workshop Application Developer Edition.

Do You Know What You Run?

Fri, 09 Jan 2004 00:00:00 EST

Very large organizations know the value of spending a little (or a lot of) extra money to be in total control of the information. The rest of us have probably run into situations where the server version in production may or may not be exactly the same as the one in the QA section and would most certainly run at different log and debug settings from the server developers are working with.

State Machines and Workflow

Fri, 09 Jan 2004 00:00:00 EST

The state machine is one of the most successful ideas in the history of computing. Alan Turing built a model of computability around the concept, and in doing so became the father of computer science. Mealy, Moore, Harel, and other theorists expanded the idea, influencing engineers of digital logic, real-time, and embedded systems whose designs are peppered with state machines and diagrams.

BPM Offline Viewer

Mon, 01 Dec 2003 00:00:00 EST

Developers of workflow-based applications with the Business Process Modeler (BPM) component of BEA WebLogic Integration Version 7 use a powerful, feature-rich, graphical editor, called Studio, to design workflow templates and to monitor the progress and state of runtime instances of templates.

Smoothing the Hand-Off to Production

Mon, 01 Dec 2003 00:00:00 EST

It is late Monday afternoon and your application is finally going into production. After a year of development and months of QA, it will be live first thing Tuesday morning.

The Cost of Marshalling

Mon, 01 Dec 2003 00:00:00 EST

For those of us who are always looking to optimize our code and improve performance by squeezing out a few milliseconds here and there, marshalling is one of those areas that you expect to be so bloated that you would think you could improve performance many times if you could get your hands on it.

Introduction to ebXML

Mon, 01 Dec 2003 00:00:00 EST

With today's increasing demand for businesses to communicate with each other, business-to-business (B2B) integration holds the key to successful e-commerce collaboration.

conf2admin

Mon, 01 Dec 2003 00:00:00 EST

Enterprise software applications are complex, but almost certainly more complex is the underlying software that provides services and resources to these applications. There are different types of software that fall into the latter category, one of those being a Java application server, which of course for this article is the BEA WebLogic Application Server.

Performance Improvement in a J2EE Application

Mon, 01 Dec 2003 00:00:00 EST

Java is hot. Just nine years old, it has become one of the leading development environments in the world.

Automated WebLogic Server Domain Setup

Thu, 06 Nov 2003 00:00:00 EST

BEA WebLogic Server domains in largescale enterprises satisfy a broad range of requirements, including highly scalable application deployments, integration of various boundary systems, and high availability setups. As a natural consequence the level of the domain's complexity rises.

Parallel Business Logic Processing

Thu, 06 Nov 2003 00:00:00 EST

When independent business components must be executed simultaneously, the parallel processing of application business logic has a direct impact on the performance of the system; however, parallel processing at the application level historically has been challenging to implement.

How to Secure a Web Application

Thu, 06 Nov 2003 00:00:00 EST

While security is a concern throughout an application, it is especially important for Web application components. An insecure Web application leaves a Web site vulnerable to many attacks, some that require nothing more than an Internet browser and a small amount of knowledge.

How to Diagnose a Performance Problem in a J2EE System

Thu, 06 Nov 2003 00:00:00 EST

So you've been told to diagnose a performance problem in a WebLogic J2EE application. Because Java systems are so complex, this can be a bit like diagnosing a rare illness.

Enterprise Portal Integration and the Enterprise Service Bus Part 2

Fri, 03 Oct 2003 09:12:01 EDT

Enterprise portals have become the most popular method of offering a common user interface to a suite of services across the enterprise. Offering business visibility, flexibility, and knowledge management, portals promise users the ability to monitor, search, and manage business activity across the enterprise.

Getting Started with WebLogic Platform 8.1

Fri, 03 Oct 2003 09:04:13 EDT

BEA WebLogic Platform 8.1, first announced in March 2003, is now generally available. This release provides substantial productivity benefits for developers wishing to build new applications, integrate existing applications, and extend these applications to different groups of end users.

Keep Your Data Flowing

Fri, 03 Oct 2003 00:00:00 EDT

Providing a first-class online user experience can require access to multiple sources of data. The required data often resides in multiple databases, packaged applications, and other information silos.