New in this release
IBM WebSphere Application Server offers a world-class infrastructure for
open e-business platforms. As the foundation of the WebSphere software platform,
WebSphere Application Server provides a rich, e-business application deployment
environment with a complete set of application services including capabilities
for transaction management, security, clustering, performance, availability,
connectivity and scalability.
Several new and improved features are summarized here, with links to more
information.
Features that are new or improved are indicated by release level. Technical
updates are indicated similarly throughout the documentation. Version 3.5
and Version 4 users will know this as the documentation Revision history or What's
New.
See also the Site Map, available in the
top-level navigational view in each online information center. From the Site
Map, you can determine updates relative to the documentation at the V5.0 level.
![[5.0 only]](../../v50.gif)
See also the Site Map, available from the
banner of the online information center. From the Site Map, you can determine
updates relative to the documentation at the V5.0 level.
Planning, installation, and product migration
Manage installation
of interim fixes and fix packs with the update installer application, which
is also known as the updateInstaller program or the update installation wizard.
For instructions, see Installing interim fixes, cumulative fixes, and fix packs.
- The product offers production-ready J2EE 1.3 standards and Web services
support.
- The new packaging structure simplifies the conversion
of stand-alone, single machine product installations into multiple node environments.
To the base WebSphere Application Server package, the WebSphere Application
Server Network Deployment package adds:
- Clustering, including workload management (weighted bind policy), failover,
distributed security, and distributed naming
- Distributed systems administration, including single-system image, cluster
creation and management, configuration and application distribution, and monitoring
For more information, see WebSphere Application Server packages.
Multiple node environments are created
by federating multiple WebSphere Application Server installations into cells,
each of which is managed by a deployment manager provided by a Network
Deployment installation.
For more information, see the administrative
agents section of Welcome to System Administration.
- An essential new task for users of Network Deployment
involves the addNode command. In summary, use this command to federate the
configuration of a stand-alone WebSphere Application Server installation into
a cell-wide configuration store for distributed management.
Unlike Version
4, no new software installation is required on the stand-alone server to make
it part of the set of servers grouped under a single deployment manager. The
set of servers is known as a cell.
For more information, see Establishing multimachine environments.
- If migrating from Version 4 to a multiple machine
environment including the Network Deployment package, it is best to migrate
the Network Deployment node before adding other nodes to the central configuration.
The Version 5 migration tools are available to help you.
When you migrate
to Version 5, the configuration from the previous version is split between
configuration information relative to the Network Deployment node (specifically,
the deployment manager on that node) and the other nodes it manages. In particular,
the following objects are migrated on a deployment manager configuration:
- Clusters
- Security
- Virtual hosts
Indeed, the WASPostUpgrade migration tool cannot be used on an
WebSphere Application Server node that already belongs to a cell managed by
a deployment manager. To be able to use the migration tool again, remove the
node from the cell, use the tool, and then federate the node into the cell
again.
- Migration tools help you migrate existing configurations
from certain previous versions during the installation process. They include
both pre-upgrade and post-upgrade activities. The WASPreUpgrade and the WASPostUpgrade
migration tools are updated for each release. To migrate the configuration
from another version of WebSphere Application Server, use the WASPreUpgrade
tool from the migration/bin directory on the product CD-ROM. The
tool from the previous release is not sufficient for migrating to a new one.
For more information, see Migrating and coexisting.
Use the WebSphere
Application Server migration tools to migrate your WebSphere Application Server
- Express configuration and applications to IBM WebSphere Application Server
using instructions in the base product information center.
- Multiple server instances and multiple product
installations on one machine are now supported.
For more information, see Multiple deployment manager cells and Multiple Application Servers within a node.
- Multiple configuration instances are also available. Configuration
instances appear to be separate installation instances on a single machine
but actually share product binaries and have unique configurations and data
only. You can create a configuration instance when the original installation
location is read-only. For more information, see Creating multiple Version 5 configuration instances.
- The servlet redirector and remote OSE mechanisms are no longer supported.
Instead, HTTP forwards Web requests from your Web server to an HTTP server or
an HTTP internal transport running inside the appropriate application
server.
- WebSphere Edge Server functionality
has been integrated into IBM WebSphere Application Server, including a Demilitarized
Zone (DMZ) CD containing software for load-balancing and content caching.
The edge of the DMZ includes:
- HTTP routers
- HTTP server
- Caching proxy
- Deployment manager (further described in the Systems Administration section
of this document)
For more information, see Configuring Edge Side Include caching.
- The base WebSphere Application Server product includes a new level of
the IBM HTTP Server powered by Apache 1.3, which is Version 1.3.28. The product
also includes a plug-in option for IBM HTTP Server powered by Apache 2.0.
The installer can configure either Web server.
The installer program requires
you to install IBM HTTP Server into a new directory.
There is a new level of GSKit.
- The installer program configures the
Sun ONE Web Server on AIX for WebSphere Application Server support when you
select the Sun ONE plug-in when installing on an AIX machine. Other platforms
are still supported.
New and improved WebSphere Samples
Gallery
- Technology centered Samples, including EJB, J2EE client, JMS, JSP, and
Servlet Samples.
- The Plants by WebSphere "super Sample," demonstrating multiple
technologies used to build realistic applications.
- Java Petstore Sample
- ANT-based build scripts enabling you to run, modify, rebuild, and run
the Samples again.
- Use of Cloudscape rather than DB2 for the Samples requiring a database.
Cloudscape has a smaller footprint.
- Samples demonstrating each of the Enterprise product
programming model extensions.
For more information, see Samples Gallery.
Servers
- The product now has a single Java
virtual machine (JVM) run time, including containers, naming, security, administration,
resources, ORB, and HTTP engine
- The new, flexible packaging structure
means there is just one Application Server code base, with add-ons available
for scale and function. The Application Server now runs with the high
performing:
![[5.0 only]](../../v50.gif)
![[Version 5.0.1]](../../v501.gif)
IBM Developer Kit, Java Technology
Edition, Version 1.3.1 used on AIX, Windows, Linux, and z/OS operating systems
- Java 2 SDK from Sun
on the Solaris Operating Environment
- Java 2 SDK from HP-UX
on the HP-UX operating system
For more information, see Using the JVM.
To confirm that you
have the latest version of the IBM SDK for z/OS, you can use a java -version command.
For more information about build dates and included fixes, see Service summary - IBM SDK for z/OS, Java 2 Technology Edition
- Workload management and clustering
has improved.
For more information, see Balancing workloads with clusters.
- In Version 3.5.x and Version 4, the default
bootstrap setting was 900. Now the default is 2809. This does not cause problems
in applications unless there is a direct reference to port 900. You can reconfigure
the port setting to 900 if you migrate your previous configuration.
For
more information, see Port number settings in WebSphere Application Server versions.
- The system name space structure provided by the name server has changed
significantly since the last release, including:
- The Version 5 name space is distributed, meaning that objects are not
all bound under a single context root as with previous versions.
- The name space consists of partitions. Some partitions in the name space
contain transient bindings and some partitions contain persistent bindings.
These features and other
new naming features are summarized in Version 5 features for name space support.
Applications > EJB modules
- EJB persistence manager has been re-architected to support EJB 2.0 CMP
scheme, which differs greatly from the EJB 1.1 scheme
- EJB persistence manager has improved in modularity, maintainability, and
performance. Maintenance focuses on configuration of server components, with
less need to regenerate deployed artifacts
- EJB 2.0 specification support, including:
- Local and remote beans
- Message-driven beans
- Container-managed relationships
- A portable finder query language
- All other aspects of the specification
- Programming model
- Abstract and concrete entity beans
- Local home and local entity interfaces
- Container-managed association relationships
- Dependent values
- EJB query language
- Plus these features that add high performance persistence beyond EJB 2.0:
- Changing semantic behavior
- Entity bean inheritance
- Optimistic concurrency control
- Read-ahead
- Intent mechanism support
- Support for different types of backend access mechanisms
- Procedural access
- SQLJ
- Data caching
EJB specification extensions
are described in WebSphere extensions to the Enterprise JavaBeans specification.
- Powerful new features enhance container-managed persistence (CMP) entity
bean performance, including:
- Caching of bean data at several levels
- Long lifetime caching, for beans that change only infrequently and thus
remain read-only across many transactions
- Read-ahead, which pre-loads groups and working-sets of beans in a single
datastore operation by following selected bean relationships
- Optimistic concurrency control, which minimizes the amount of time data
is actually locked during updates and thus increases overall throughput in
heavily-used applications
- CMP beans and bean-managed persistence (BMP) beans can share datastore
connections, allowing access to related data by both kinds of beans when in
the same transaction.
- Activity sessions are new. An activity session
is a "unit of work" construct which can group work done by several transactions
into a user-definable unit. Various properties and configurations can be associated
with an Activity Session.
For more information, see Using the ActivitySession service.
- CMP beans may inherit from one another (in other words, they may subclass
one another). The Application Server will recognize this during bean deployment
and at run time will -- for example -- allow finders to return beans of that
class or any subclass. Inheritance may be expressed in relational datastores
in either "single-table" or "root-leaf" arrangements.
Applications > Web modules
- Servlet 2.3 with Filters and Events
- JSP 1.2 with XML Syntax
- Changes in autoRequestEncoding
and autoResponseEncoding
The web container no longer automatically sets
request and response encodings and response content types. The programmer
is expected to set these values using the methods available in the Servlet
2.3 API. If you want the Application Server to attempt to automatically set
these values, set autoRequestEncoding=true in order to have the request encoding
value set and set autoResponseEncoding=true in order to have the response
encoding and content type set. These values can be found in the ibm-web-ext.xmi
file for each web application.
For more information, see autoRequestEncoding and autoResponseEncoding.
- Filters are Java classes that can be configured to operate on (filter)
the request and response data of a requested resource.
The resource to
filter, and filter precedence is specified in the deployment descriptor information
found in the web.xml file of a Web application. Initialization parameters
for filters can also be specified in the web.xml. Filters can be chained and
can be configured to work on a single resource or a group of resources. Typical
usages for filters include logging filters, image conversion filters, encryption
filters, and MIME-type filters (functionally equivalent to the old style servlet
chaining).
For more information,
see Servlet filtering.
- Application lifecycle events give
the application developer greater control over interactions with ServletContext
and HttpSession objects.
Application event objects consist of application
events and application listeners. Servlet context listeners are used to manage
resources at an application level. Session listeners manage resources associated
with a series of request from a single client. Listeners are available for
lifecycle events and for attribute modification events. The listener developer
creates a class that implements the javax listener interface corresponding
to the desired listener functionality.
For more information, see Application lifecycle listeners and events.
- The HttpUtils class is deprecated in 2.3 and its methods are replaced
by new methods in the request object. The HttpUtils class will still be available
for use by servlet writers until a future servlet specification directs its
complete removal.
- The product no longer requires the JSP-enabling servlet
The file
serving enabled check box in the IBM extensions tab of the Web
module properties in the Application Assembly Tool controls this function
for V5, V5.0.1, and V5.0.2. (It is selected by default.)
![[5.0 only]](../../v50.gif)
Adding JSP files
to the WAR file in the Application Assembly Tool or to the appropriate application_name.war directory
of the installed enterprise application causes the JSP files to be served.
![[5.0 only]](../../v50.gif)
Adding
HTML files to the Web archive (WAR) file in the Application Assembly Tool
or to the appropriate application_name.war directory of the installed
enterprise application causes the HTML files to be served.
- New and improved features pertaining
to HTTP session support include:
- Multiple mechanisms for HTTP session state management, plus configuration
options based on scalability and failover requirements from simple, single
server environments to large, high-load clusters:
- In memory
- Persistent to database
- Memory-to-memory
- Replacement of the Session Manager object, which resided underneath each
servlet engine in the WebSphere Application Server Version 4 topology. Its
properties are now part of each Application Server.
- Enhanced support for HTTP Session State failover, as described in Managing HTTP sessions.
- With Version 5, a new option exists for saving HttpSession information
for failure recovery purposes. In addition to a database, IBM WebSphere Application
Server can save a HttpSession in more than one Application Server instance.
Called in-memory session replication, this feature leverages the replication
domain and replicator entry services provided in Network Deployment.
Session support for Wireless Application Protocol
devices, as described in Configuring session tracking for Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) devices.
Applications > Web services
WebSphere
Application Server Version 5.02 introduces support for Web services for J2EE
(JSR-109).
The new Web services standards are
developed for the Java language under the Java Community Process (JCP). These
standards include the Java API for XML-based remote procedure call, JAX-RPC
(JSR-101), and Web services for J2EE.
The
JAX-RPC standard covers the programming model and bindings for using Web Services
Description Language (WSDL) for Web services in the Java language. The Web
services standard for J2EE covers the use of JAX-RPC in a J2EE environment,
as well as the deployment of Web services implementations in a J2EE server.
Both standards are part of the J2EE 1.4 release.
Web services development tools have been enhanced
and are now based on the Java API for XML-based remote procedure call (JAX-RPC)
1.0 and on the Web services for J2EE, Version 1.0 (JSR-109) specifications.
See Implementing Web services for
an introduction to the new documentation based on these specifications.
Web services enable businesses to connect
applications to other business applications, to deliver business functions
to a broader set of customers and partners, to interact with marketplaces
more efficiently, and to create new business models dynamically. To that extent,
the product provides four protocols that support Web services:
- Web Services Description Language (WSDL), an XML-based description language
that provides a way to catalog and describe services
- Universal Discovery Description and Integration (UDDI), a global, platform-independent,
open framework to enable businesses to discover each other, define their interaction,
and share information in a global registry
- SOAP, a lightweight protocol for exchange of information in a decentralized,
distributed environment
- eXtensible Markup Language (XML), which provides a common language for
exchanging information.
- Enhanced Web Services, including WSIF and Web Services Security. New and
improved features in Web services support include:
- An open source implementation of a Web Services Invocation Framework (WSIF),
new in this release. It includes protocol isolation and dynamic invocation
(no stubs)
- The following new features added
by WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment and WebSphere Application
Server for z/OS:
- A private Universal Description, Discovery
and Integration (UDDI) Registry, implementing Version 2.0 of the UDDI specification.
The UDDI feature also requires installation of the base WebSphere Application
Server product in the cell, to host the enterprise applications. See Migrating from a previous version of IBM WebSphere UDDI Registry about migrating from the IBM WebSphere
UDDI Registry PRPQ that ran in the previous product version.
- A Web Services Gateway for providing
gateway access to existing Web services. The Web Services Gateway feature
also requires installation of the base WebSphere Application Server product
in the cell, to host the enterprise applications. See Web services gateway - What is new in this release for a description of the main differences between
this version of the gateway and the Technical Preview version of the gateway
that ran in the previous product version.
- AXIS has improved performance and flexible architecture.
- Newly-enhanced Web services capabilities of WebSphere Studio (sold separately)
for developing Web services and
Web services gateway filters.
Web services security functionality that is based
on standards included in the Web services security (WS-Security) specification.
Web services security is a message-level standard, based on securing SOAP
messages through XML digital signature, confidentiality through XML encryption,
and credential propagation through security tokens. See Securing Web services based on WS-Security for
information on securing Web services.
Applications > Application services
Internationalization support
has been enhanced to support Web service-enabled application components. For
a functional overview, see Welcome to applications.
To get started with the internationalization service, see Using the internationalization service.
- The Enterprise product adds a whole range of extensions
to address functional gaps in the J2EE programming model. They include:
- Changes and improvements in naming
support are described in Version 5 features for name space support.
They include:
- The way that the system binds objects into the name space has changed
significantly.
Before WebSphere Application Server Version 5.0, all objects
were bound relative to a single root context. Now they are bound to a context
that is specific to the server associated with the object. This context is
referred to as the server root context. Each server has its own server root
context. An initial context can be any server root context. This means that
jndiName values in deployment descriptors and lookup names in thin clients
must be qualified when the object associated with the name is bound under
a server root context different from the initial context.
For
more information, see Name space logical view and Lookup names support in deployment descriptors and thin clients.
- In Version 3.5.x and Version 4.x, the Name
Server runs in the same process as the administrative server. An administrative
server is no longer running on every Version 5 installation. The Name Server
configuration is included in the same configuration files as Application Servers.
The Name Server runs in its own process.
- Changes and improvements in dynamic caching include:
- Internationalization support enables applications to become global
by determining the client locale and changing supported attributes, such as
currency, character sets, and so on. For information about the internationalization service,
see Using the internationalization service.
- Class loaders are new and improved as of Version 5.0. For more information,
see Class loading.
- User profile support is deprecated.
For more information, see Using user profiles.
Resources > Messaging
- Java Message Service (JMS) through embedded provider
- Supports point-to-point and publish/subscribe styles of messaging
- Used for message-driven bean support
- Integrated with transaction manager (JMS with XA)
- Used for messaging within a cluster or cell
- Support for plugging in other JMS providers, including MQ Series
- Messaging and e-mail interfaces through JavaBeans Activation Framework
(JAF), Remote Method Invocation over Internet InterORB Protocol (RMI/IIOP),
the JavaMail API, and Java Messaging Service (JMS) with the help of IBM MQ
Series
- Integrated JMS, as described
in Using asynchronous messaging
Resources > Data access
The administrative console pages for configuring
data sources now contain options for testing the data source connections. See Test connection.
- All connector access is through J2C.
- JDBC access managed via J2C relational resource connector
- Legacy JDBC support is provided
- Data access support provides a complete implementation of the JCA 1.0
specification, including support for:
- Connection sharing
This version fully supports the res-sharing-scope
tag within the resource reference (resource-ref) element, so the product
supports both shareable and unshareable connections.
- Get/use/close and get/use/cache programming models for connection handles
The
product supports the Web container. Both EJB and Web components can utilize
the J2EE Connector Architecture.
- XA, local, and No transaction models of resource adapters, including XA
recovery
- Security options A and C per the specification
- Res-auth settings of either application or container.
In Version 4,
the res-auth setting was disregarded. That is, it was treated as if the value
of res-auth was set to application. If your existing applications had res-auth
set to container, you might get different behavior if you install them into
the new environment without any changes.
Applications must be packaged as J2EE 1.3 applications. For
more information, see Migrating a version 4.0 data access application to version 5.1.
Environment
- Configurable plug-ins for popular Web servers.
The Web server (or HTTP
Server) plug-in enables communication between the HTTP server and the Application
Server. It uses the industry-standard HTTP transport protocol for non-secure
transports and HTTPS for secure transports.
- The plugin-cfg.xml file location has changed to install_root/config/cells/plugin-cfg.xml.
For more information, including
format changes, see Configuring Web server plug-ins.
- HTTP server capabilities embedded within the base product.
For
more information, see Configuring transports.
- New variable support. Variables are configuration properties that can
be used to provide a parameter for any value in the system.
For
more information, see Variables.
- New shared library support.
For
more information, see Shared library files.
System administration
- Terminology for distributed
systems management:
- A cell is a collection of machines that you are managing together.
- A node is a machine on which you are running an Application Server.
- A server is the Java virtual machine running the Application Server containing
your applications.
- New, scalable XML-based administrative
infrastructure:
- All configuration data is stored in XML for standard deployment descriptors,
and XMI format for product-specific configuration documents. These documents
are stored on each node. No relational database is required. See Working with server configuration files.
- The Server configuration API is provided for manipulating product configuration
files. See WebSphere
configuration documentation (Javadoc)
.
- Servers load directly from configurations in XML documents.
- Application binaries are managed as part of the configuration repository.
- In clusters, the product manages
synchronization of documents across machines. This feature is configurable,
as described in File synchronization service settings.
- JMX support:
- Multiple protocol support (SOAP
by default, but also RMI/IIOP)
- Support for alerts
- Message routing between machines,
providing cell-level view
- Support for MBeans that you
define and register
- Run-time attributes and access to run-time operations, configurations,
and performance data
For more information, see Deploying and managing using programming.
- Scripting support:
- Based on Bean Scripting Framework (BSF), supports multiple scripting languages;
- Parallel capability between scripting and Web-based administrative console
- Interactive and script modes
- Multiple connection styles (SOAP, RMI)
- Remote administration support
- Ability to access any MBean registered in any server in the cell
- Run-time attributes and access to run-time operations, configurations,
and performance data
For more information, see Deploying and managing using scripting.
- WebSphere administrative console:
For more information, see Using the administrative console.
- Many command line tools are now available for specific tasks. For more
information, see Managing using command line tools.
Monitoring and tuning performance
The Runtime
Performance Advisor and the Performance Advisor in Tivoli Performance Viewer
are new tools that suggest configuration changes to help administrators optimize
performance on WebSphere Application Server. For more information, see Welcome to Performance
Tuning information has
been enhanced to include the handy Parameter
index, which is the comprehensive list of tuning parameters.
- The Performance Monitoring Infrastructure
(PMI):
- Is now integrated with Java Management eXtensions (JMX), as shown in Performance Monitoring Infrastructure .
- Has new counters including those for:
- Dynamic caching
- Workload management
- Object Request Broker (ORB)
- HTTP session size
- JDBC time
- Web Services
- CPU utilization
For more information about data, see Performance data organization.
- Supports both the PmiClient interface and the JMX interface. The latter
is supported through the AdminClient class described in Developing an administrative client program.
- Continues to support the V4-style APIs, but the data hierarchy has been
updated to match the V5 product structure.
- The Resource Analyzer has been
rebranded as the Tivoli Performance Viewer and bundled with WebSphere Application
Server. New features include logging and replay in XML format, and CPU utilization.
For more information, see Monitoring performance with Tivoli Performance Viewer (formerly Resource Analyzer).
- Request metrics instrumentation
tracks the time spent by selected requests in each WebSphere Application Server
component in the system. The data can be written to a log file or sent to
an ARM agent. For more information, see Measuring data requests (Performance Monitoring Infrastructure Request Metrics).
- Performance features include:
- Dynamic, multi tier caching, which is set up per node or Application
Server using XML files. Such caching is most effective for non-user-specific
output, such as mutual fund prices.
- Dynamic reloading of enterprise beans.
- JNDI caching, which improves performance by caching expensive lookups.
See JNDI caching.
- Caching of dynamic content, such as servlets and JSP files, to improve
throughput.
- The product can be tuned from the WebSphere administrative console.
Troubleshooting
Enhanced problem
determination features include:
- First failure data capture (FFDC):
- Collects data based on the first failure in the system
- Filters out expected or recurring exceptions to reduce overhead in collecting
data
- Passes data to an analysis engine that searches a knowledge base of information
about common errors, including their possible causes and solutions
For more information, see Working with troubleshooting tools.
- The RAS collector tool gathers
information to send to IBM Service personnel. For more information, see Gathering information with the Collector tool.
The RAS
collector summary option is a lightweight version of the RAS collector tool.
It is useful for initial problem reporting to IBM Service personnel. For more
information, see Collector summary.
- Improved messages. To view message
documentation, click Messages in the Reference view of the information
center.
Searchable topic ID:
rovr_whatsnew_main
Last updated: Jun 21, 2007 8:07:48 PM CDT
WebSphere Business Integration Server Foundation, Version 5.0.2
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