Professional J2EE Programming with BEA WebLogic Server [ILLUSTRATED] (Paperback)

~ Paco Gomez (Author), Peter Zadrozny (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Despite its wordy title, Professional Java 2 Enterprise Edition with BEA WebLogic Server actually is one of the better books that you can get for learning JSP-based programming with Java and Enterprise JavaBeans (EJBs). By highlighting practical matters--including setting up and running the popular BEA WebLogic Server, and benchmarking performance--the authors manage to cover the essentials of EJB-based development in a friendly and intelligent style that's ideal for any aspiring Java EJB developer.

The focus on hands-on matters begins with installation and configuration of BEA WebLogic Server, one of the more widely used platforms for running EJB applications. Most books cover EJBs more theoretically and leave deployment by the wayside. By focusing on an actual EJB product, the authors can talk about what works and what doesn't work in real applications. For examples, a single case study for a chain of pizza shops gets enhanced in stages, first with a Web front end for ordering pizzas, then with other features--including call-center support, e-mail, and XML. A section on converting an ASP version of a front end for this sample application into a JSP version is a highlight.

The latter half of this text turns into a primer on benchmarking. A benchmark (called the Grinder) measures performance, with a wide range of choices for EJBs that run on WebLogic. Different Java Virtual Machines (JVMs) and choices for implementing the applications (for example, stateful vs. stateless EJBs) are tested, and the numbers of concurrent users (up to 400) are varied. The result is a solid glimpse into the choices that give the best performance on WebLogic.

Besides covering the basics of building e-commerce applications with JSPs and EJBs, this book has a genuinely practical side. The case study is very useful, as is the plentiful performance advice. Smart, friendly, and well organized, this title strikes an excellent balance between presenting information on some of the latest Java technology and APIs, and showing just how to do it on a real EJB platform and with real code. --Richard Dragan

Topics covered:

• Introduction to Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE)
• Getting started with BEA WebLogic Server: features and administration
• "Webifying" existing applications
• Introduction to JavaServer Pages (JSPs)
• Overview of BEA dbKona and htmlKona for simpler JSP/servlet development
• JSP architectures (Model 1 and Model 2)
• Using Enterprise JavaBeans (EJBs)
• Session beans, including stateless session beans
• Entity beans (container-managed and bean-managed persistence)
• Converting ASPs to JSPs
• Sending e-mail and the Java Message Service
• Security issues for Web applications, including authentication, SSL, and authorization
• Introduction to Wireless Markup Language (WML) and wireless applications
• Stress-testing performance for Web applications
• Grinder (custom benchmark for performance testing)
• Comparative benchmark scores (comparing JVMs, stateful and stateless beans, entity beans, and clustering options for up to 400 users)
• Case study for chain of pizza shops with e-commerce features and call centers
• JSP syntax reference

Product Description

Technology Overview

The Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) specification is one of Java's success stories; a standard for enterprise web application development that has wide industry support.

J2EE is basically a collection of specifications for web services, business objects, data access, and messaging. They define the way in which web applications communicate with the servers that host them. J2EE focuses on two things - creating a standard that allows web applications to be portable between servers, and giving the server control of component lifecycle and other resources, in order that it can handle issues of scaling, concurrency, transaction management, and security.

This book is based around one of the most popular J2EE and EJB implementations, BEA WebLogic Server. The authors work for BEA in Europe, providing technical support for customer's implementations of Weblogic-based solutions. They have first-hand knowledge of the practical difficulties developers face in applying J2EE and WebLogic to their projects, and in debugging and testing these applications. This book is a distillation of their real-world expertise.

Who is this book for?

This book is for professional Java developers who want to see the development of a full J2EE example and its configuration and deployment on BEA WebLogic Server. Coverage of the APIs involved, reasoning behind the architecture decisions made, and how the example is tested, is included.

Java knowledge is assumed, as is a basic tutorial understanding of the J2EE APIs. Some experience of enterprise level / web application programming is expected.

What does this book cover?

Moving a client/server app to the web using J2EE APIs Interfacing multiple front ends to the underlying business logic How to create business logic components with Enterprise JavaBeans Using Java Message Service for reliable and broadcast messaging WebLogic Server-specific programming and configuration detail Security concerns for an e-commerce site The Grinder, a stress-tester for web applications Results of stress-tests compare application architectures under different loads Full working example developed and tested in the book

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Product Details

• Paperback: 509 pages
• Publisher: John Wiley & Sons; 1st edition (October 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1861002998
• ISBN-13: 978-8173662973
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,614,418 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

45 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars What could have been!, November 6, 2000

By	CHUCK J CAVANESS (Atlanta, Ga United States) - See all my reviews

I'm sorry to say that I was really disappointed with this book. Since I have been using Weblogic 5.1 to build enterprise applications, I was really counting on some insight from a book written by two BEA insiders. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing apparently incorrect about the book, I just was looking for more than I could find in the Weblogic documentation or the BEA newsgroups.

If you look at the BEA newsgroups, there are many people asking questions about such things as why the message "Attempt to sendMsg using a closed connection" happens and what can be done about it. More information on issues of how the server attempts to clean up remote clients using the DGC for example, would have made this a better book. I'm sure for people starting out with Weblogic, any book that adds to the documentation for Weblogic is a plus, but to focus so much on the web-tier was disappointing. I was really looking for an in-depth book on how Weblogic implements the EJB/J2EE specification. I do think that the stress-testing chapters were of benefit though.

The other thing that I must say is that I'm all for using a constant example through a book to help the reader conceptualize a problem. The problem is that the tone that this book took was really annoying. On page 204 in the "Controversy" section, does this add any real value to the learning process of Weblogic? I understand that there is controversy in almost any decision in a development shop; it's part of the job. What value does it add here in a Weblogic book? It seems to me to add no value except for adding to the page count. This style of taking an example with a group called the "Wonder Troops" does nothing but annoy me. Readers know it's a fictitious company and don't really buy into the problem they are experiencing. This really doesn't help me understand the technology any better.

Having said all of that, I still applaud the two authors for putting a good beginning book out on a subject that needed more information. I was just hoping for so much more. I think that if you having been using Weblogic 5.1 for any length of time, you probably won't learn a great deal.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Don't even bother buying this book, January 26, 2001

By	Dale Simmons (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

It is unbelievable how irrelevant this book is to BEA WebLogic. If you expect a solid introduction to J2EE and WebLogic, you'll have to look elsewhere. I see another book on this topic is due out in June...hopefully it will fill the void that this book leaves.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Could Have Been an Much Better Book, October 31, 2000

By A Customer

The first reviewer gave this book two stars. I think this was too harsh. There is some good information in the book and as far as technical books go, getting "some good information" is about all you can ask.

I'm not a professional reviewer, just a reader of these types of books, so YMMV this review.

I thought Chapter 1, "Webifying Applications" was well written and informative. The same is true for Chapters 2 and 3, Setting the Scene - Pizzas to Go & Creating a Web Front End. The middle chapters are good general Java references EJB, JSP, JMI, and the other standard web-buzz of today. One thing I liked was the fact that the web-buzz was illustrated with an application example, Pizza2Go. At least this puts the architectual pieces in context, a lot of books on the same subject have zero practical context.

Chapter 9, "The Wireless Pizza" is a good practice guide to WAP and other wireless-buzz which I found helpful. Also, Chapter 10 and 11 devote a lot of pages to stress testing and grinding the servers for optimizing the configuration of the servers. This is good tutorial information that I've not found in other books.

The security chapter was a little too weak and covered only SSL and other first-generation web security methods. I've heard from others that this is a common weakness in the BEA architecture but do not have first hand knowledge of this buzz.

Overall the book is useful and the two stars by the first reviewer was too harsh. My four stars may be to kind, but I tend to buy a lot of technical books and if I can get a few good nuggets from each one, I'm happy. There are plenty of nuggets here and having a practical BEA Weblogic perspective is useful.

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