One of the main goals of Oracle’s strategy for GlassFish server was to “integrate with Fusion Middleware and Products” (source:
Community Roadmap May, 2010). Back in this year you heard a lot of fears and rumors about the two servers becoming one. Seeing both products moving forward in terms of features and releases it gets clearer what that strategy could be.
Beginning with GlassFish’s support for a limited set of weblogic specific deployment descriptors, Oracle also moved on with WebLogic to do the same. Beginning with 10.3.6 WebLogic Server adds support for reading and using GlassFish’s web deployment descriptors. These are glass?sh-web.xml and sun-web.xml. This is useful for providing speci?c GlassFish behavioral settings and mappings for resources and security to WebLogic Server. The goal behind that obviously is to allow a GlassFish application to be deployed more easily to WebLogic Server and vice verse.
What WebLogic knows about GlassFish
WebLogic Server detects the presence of GlassFish web deployment descriptors in WAR files and parses them. Known entries are parsed into WebLogic server settings and applied at runtime via WebLogic MBeans (weblogic.j2ee.descriptor.wl.WeblogicWebAppBean).
WebLogic always will use an existing weblogic.xml instead of the GlassFish deployment descriptors if it is present and WebLogic applies the settings at runtime which means, that no weblogic.xml is actually generated.
| glassfish-web.xml Element Name | Weblogic Support (weblogic.xml) |
|---|
| context-root | context-root | | security-role-mapping role-name principle-name group-name | security-role-assignment role-name principle-name principle-name | | session-config session-manager:manager-properties:reapIntervalSeconds session-manager:manager-properties:maxSessions session-manager:manager-properties:directory session-manager:manager-properties:timeoutSeconds | session-descriptor invalidation-interval-seconds max-in-memory-sessions persistentOstoreOdir timeout-secs | | ejb-ref ejb-ref-name jndi-name | ejb-ref-description ejb-ref-name jndi-name | | resource-ref res-ref-name jndi-name | resource-description res-ref-name jndi-name | | resource-env-ref resource-env-ref-name jndi-name | resource-env-description resource-env-ref-name jndi-name | | class-loader delegate | container-descriptor prefer-web-inf-classes | | jsp-config checkInterval keepgenerated scratchdir | jsp-descriptor page-check-seconds keepgenerated working-dir |
|
If you deploy a GlassFish web-application to WebLogic you get some log messages with INFO level and you can follow what is happening:
<Info> <HTTP> <BEA-101392>…
<Glassfish Descriptor element <glassfish-web-app> is not supported>
<Glassfish Descriptor element <context-root> was successfully parsed and applied>
<Glassfish Descriptor element <idempotent-url-pattern> is not supported>
<Glassfish Descriptor element <property> is not supported>
<Glassfish Descriptor element <reapIntervalSeconds> was successfully parsed and applied>
<Glassfish Descriptor element <res-ref-name> was successfully parsed and applied>
<Glassfish Descriptor element <jndi-name> was successfully parsed and applied>
<Glassfish Descriptor element <delegate> was successfully parsed and applied>
<Glassfish Descriptor element <keepgenerated> was successfully parsed and applied>
Compared to what GlassFish knows about WebLogic, this is still a very limited set of parameters. But it covers the most needed ones. And we are still looking forward to even less xml configuration with further Java EE versions. But let’s look at the other side.
What GlassFish knows about WebLogic
GlassFish Server offers limited support for the weblogic-application.xml, weblogic.xml, and weblogic-webservices.xml deployment descriptor files. The only element in weblogic-application.xml that GlassFish Server supports is security. The equivalent element in the glassfish-application.xml file is security-role-mapping.
| weblogic.xml Element Name | GlassFish Server Support |
|---|
| role-name under security-role-assignment | role-name under security-role-mapping glassfish-web.xml equivalent | principal-name under
security-role-assignment | principal-name under security-role-mapping glassfish-web.xml equivalent | | resource-description | resource-ref glassfish-web.xml equivalent, but resource-link not supported | | resource-env-description | resource-env-ref glassfish-web.xml equivalent, but
resource-link not supported | | ejb-reference-description | ejb-ref glassfish-web.xml equivalent | | service-reference-description | service-ref glassfish-web.xml equivalent | | timeout-secs under session-descriptor | timeoutSeconds property of session-properties
glassfish-web.xml equivalent | | invalidation-interval-secs under session-descriptor | reapIntervalSeconds property of manager-properties glassfish-web.xml equivalent | | max-in-memory-sessions under session-descriptor | maxSessions property
of manager-properties glassfish-web.xml equivalent | | persistent-store-dir under session-descriptor | directory property of store-properties glassfish-web.xml equivalent | prefer-web-inf-classes under
container-descriptor | delegate attribute of class-loader glassfish-web.xml equivalent | | context-root | context-root glassfish-web.xml equivalent | | cookies-enabled under session-descriptor | Servlet 3.0 | cookie-name under
session-descriptor | Servlet 3.0 | | cookie-path under session-descriptor | Servlet 3.0 | | cookie-domain under session-descriptor | Servlet 3.0 | | cookie-comment under session-descriptor | Servlet 3.0 | cookie-secure under
session-descriptor | Servlet 3.0 | | cookie-max-age-secs under session-descriptor | Servlet 3.0 | | cookie-http-only under session-descriptor | Servlet 3.0 | | url-rewriting-enabled under session-descriptor | Servlet 3.0 | persistent-store-cookie-name under
session-descriptor | Cookie-based persistence is supported | | keepgenerated under jsp-descriptor | keepgenerated init parameter of JspServlet | | working-dir under jsp-descriptor | scratchdir
init parameter of JspServlet | | compress-html-template under jsp-descriptor | trimSpaces init parameter of JspServlet | | index-directory-enabled under container-descriptor | listings
init parameter of DefaultServlet | | index-directory-sort-by under container-descriptor | sortedBy init parameter of DefaultServlet | | save-sessions-enabled under container-descriptor | Same
as asadmin redeploy --keepstate=true or keep-state in glassfish-web.xml | | run-as-principal-name under servlet-descriptor | principal-name under servlet glassfish-web.xml |
|
| weblogic-webservices.xml Element Name | GlassFish Server Support |
|---|
| webservice-type | Possible values are JAXRPC or JAXWS. GlassFish Server
does not support JAX-RPC web services with JSR 181 annotations. The use of this
element is limited, because the container can find out if the type is
JAX-WS or JAX-RPC based on presence of JSR 181 annotations. | | wsdl-publish-file | Same as wsdl-publish-location
in glassfish-web.xml | | service-endpoint-address | Similar to endpoint-address-uri in glassfish-web.xml, except that webservice-contextpath and webservice-serviceuri are
specified separately | | j2ee:login-config | Same as login-config in glassfish-web.xml | | j2ee:transport-guarantee | Same as transport-guarantee in glassfish-web.xml | | exposed under wsdl | Accepts
true or false, defaults to true. Controls the publishing of WSDL to clients. | | stream-attachments | Accepts true
or false, defaults to true. Only for JAX-WS web services. Configures the JAX-WS runtime
to send attachments in streaming fashion. | | validate-request | Accepts true or false, defaults to false. Only
for JAX-WS web services. Configures the JAX-WS runtime to validate that request messages
are as the WSDL definitions specify. | | http-response-buffersize | Property of ReliabilityMessagingFeature configuration, similar to ReliableMessagingFeature.setDestinationBufferQuota() | | reliability-config | Partially supported. Subelements
map to Metro’s ReliabilityMessagingFeature. | | inactivity-timeout under reliability-config | Maps to ReliableMessagingFeature. getSequenceInactivityTimeout() | | base-retransmission-interval under reliability-config | Maps to ReliableMessagingFeature. getMessageRetransmissionInterval() | retransmission-exponential-backoff
under reliability-config | Maps to ReliableMessagingFeature. getRetransmissionBackoffAlgorithm(). Returns enum values, one of them is exponential. | acknowledgement-interval
under reliability-config | Maps to ReliableMessagingFeature. getAcknowledgementTransmissionInterval() | | sequence-expiration under reliability-config | Maps to ReliableMessagingFeature. getSequenceInactivityTimeout(). In WebLogic Server this
value applies regardless of activity. In Metro it applies only to inactive sequences. | buffer-retry-count
under reliability-config | Maps to ReliableMessagingFeature. getMaxMessageRetransmissionCount() | | buffer-retry-delay under reliability-config | Maps to ReliableMessagingFeature. getMessageRetransmissionInterval() |
|
But for what is all that good for?
Good question. There are some possible interpretations for what is happening.
- GlassFish could be positioned as a certified, lightweight development platform for Oracle’s FMW stack based on WebLogic server. If this would be the main goal, I wouldn’t expect WebLogic to understand any of the GF DDs but GF knowing about all tweaks and settings of WLS.
- Easy re-deployment of GF apps on WLS. This is what you find on the official launch slides. If you are running GF and you need to scale up to WLS you have a more easier migration path.
- Both teams are trying to get hands on the concepts and switches of the other side. The GF roadmaps from the past highlight a “Common Server Platform” for WLS and GF. So knowing each other could be an easy and obvious first step for the teams.
As always, a bit of everything might be true. So there is nothing else left for now than simply to be happy about and watch how both excellent servers come closer together and to be open for future possibilities.
Reference: Scaling up to WebLogic 12c Server from GlassFish 3.x from our JCG partner Markus Eisele at the Enterprise Software Development with Java blog.
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