WebSphere® Application
Server is a proven, high-performance transaction engine that can help
you build, run, integrate, and manage dynamic business applications.
This product excels as the foundation for a service-oriented architecture
with the following main benefits:
- Broad programming
model and standards support
Jump-start application development,
and speed project completion by better aligning project needs with
open standards-based programming model choices. Take advantage of
samples libraries that demonstrate many of the capabilities available
using these programming models and standards.
- Fast, flexible, and
simplified application foundation
Achieve higher productivity,
performance, security, and lower total cost of ownership throughout
the application development, test, deployment, management, and maintenance
life cycle.
- Extensive
Deployment Environments
More effectively administer,
manage, optimize, and evolve existing applications and infrastructure
deployments in an evolutionary fashion as information technology environments
transition to virtual and Cloud deployments.
- Integrated tooling
Accelerate
application developer productivity through samples, and integrated
and optimized tooling.
New feature: The new features that are
described in this topic are current as of the original release of
the product version. Changes in this documentation that are related
to service releases are marked with fix pack icons.
newfeat
This version offers robust improvements,
whether you are new to the product or making the transition from a
prior release. Use this topic to obtain a high-level summary of the
new features in this release. To learn more about the new and changed
features in key areas that affect your specific roles in your business,
see the information about what is new for installers
on distributed operating systems, administrators, security specialists, developers, and troubleshooters.
Broad programming model and standards
support
WebSphere Application Server,
Version 8.0 supports the following
for leading open standards and programming models:
See the Samples documentation to learn
more about many of the capabilities that are available by using these
programming models and standards.
- Java Batch programming
model
- Use the batch programming model to build robust batch applications
to perform long running bulk transaction processing and computationally
intensive work. This product provides two distinct programming model
types, one for transactional batch applications and another for computationally
intensive batch applications. Both jobs run as background jobs and
these types are described by a job control language and are supported
by infrastructure components specially designed to manage batch workloads.
Key benefits include but are not limited to the following capabilities:
- Batch Framework - The Batch Framework is a class library that
provides ready-to-use batch application artifacts, including generic
job steps and batch data streams for many common data access technologies,
such as files, data sets, JDBC, PureQuery, JPA, and others.
- xJCL (XML Job Control Language) - This XML-based job control language
enables users to describe the job steps that comprise their batch
jobs.
- Batch container checkpoint and restart - This infrastructure component
is the engine that runs batch jobs that are defined by xJCL. This
component supports job checkpoint and restart for transactional batch
jobs. The batch container runs inside designated WebSphere Application Servers.
- Job scheduler with job management console - This infrastructure
component is the batch job manager. You input xJCL jobs to the job
scheduler, which in turn selects the appropriate batch containers
to use to run the jobs. The job scheduler runs inside a designated WebSphere Application Server,
where it keeps job histories and supports job visibility and control
through a job management console. Using the job management console,
you can view job lists, job logs, and perform actions against jobs,
such as cancel and restart.
- Communications Enabled Applications (CEA) programming
model
- CEA support provides REST and Web Service interfaces to enable
existing applications to quickly take advantage of communications
features involving phone calls and web collaboration. Support includes
several Dojo-based widgets for easy development of web and mobile
browser-based, communication-enhanced applications.
- Extensible Markup Language (XML)
programming model
- Use the XML support provided with this product to work with web
applications that process data using new standard XML technology like
Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSLT 2.0), XML Path Language (XPath
2.0), and XML Query Language (XQuery 1.0). These new and updated
W3C XML standards offer application developers numerous advanced capabilities
for building applications that process XML data. Specific benefits
delivered in the XPath 2.0, XSLT 2.0, and XQuery 1.0 standards include
the following:
- Simpler XML application development and improved developer productivity
- Improved ability to query large amounts of data stored in XML
outside of a database with XQuery 1.0
- Improved XML-application performance through new features introduced
in the W3C specifications to address previous shortcomings
- Improved XML-application reliability with new support for XML
schema-aware processing and validation
- Java Enterprise
Edition 6.0 support
- Use continued programming model productivity and ease-of-use enhancements
through support for portions of key Java Platform,
Enterprise Edition (Java EE)
6.0, including the following:
- Support for the Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB)
3.1 specification, which includes but is not limited to the following
key capabilities:
- Calendar-based timers
- Singleton session beans
- Asynchronous EJB method invocation
- Unit test your EJB 3.1 application using a stand-alone Java 2 Platform Standard Edition
(J2SE) environment
- Support for the Contexts and Dependency
Injection (CDI) 1.0 specification at a runtime level that uses the
Apache OpenWebBeans 1.x implementation. Using CDI, you are no longer
required to write logic to maintain objects within a context. CDI
provides integration between web application expression language beans
and enterprise beans. You can declare an EJB to use within the context
of an HTTP session and use in a scriptlet with a few lines of annotations,
further simplifying the logic required for handling the integration
of web applications and EJB business logic. Combining this functionality
with the ability to combine an EJB into a web application archive
(WAR) file further simplifies web application development. Support
for the CDI specification includes but is not limited to the following
key capabilities:
- Typesafe dependency injection between components.
- Interceptors and decorators to extend the behavior of components
using a typesafe interceptor bindings.
- An event notification model for loosely coupled components.
- A system programming interface (SPI) that enables portable extensions
to integrate cleanly with the Java EE
environment.
- A web conversation context in addition to the standard web contexts,
request, session, and application.
- Integration with the Unified Expression Language (EL) enables
you to use EJB 3.0 components as JavaServer Faces (JSF) managed beans;
thereby unifying the JSF and EJB component models.
- The EJB component model is enhanced with contextual life cycle
management.
- Support for the Java Connector
Architecture (JCA) Version 1.6 specification which includes but is
not limited to the following key capabilities:
- Use annotation support in Resource Adapters (RA) to define and
configure common elements. You can use annotations in conjunction
with, or instead of, traditional XML deployment descriptors.
- Support for bean validation. Resource Adapters can also use constraint
annotations to easily perform validation of bean fields.
- Support for generic work context to provide a standard means for
systems to communicate with a resource adapter to associate context
with work submission or message delivery.
- Support for security context provides end-to-end security for
external systems to communicate with resource adapters including propagation
of a security principal to a message endpoint and execution of work
in the security context of an established identity.
- Support for the Java Persistence
API (JPA) 2.0 specification. The JPA for WebSphere Application Server implementation
is based on Apache OpenJPA 2.x and includes the type-safe Dynamic
Criteria API and associated Metamodel API, integration with the new
bean validation feature, and object relational mapping enhancements
for associated JPQL updates. Runtime environment enhancements, such
as pessimistic lock manager, second level (L2) cache, and performance
are also included.
- Support for Dynamic cache JPA L2 cache provider for OpenJPA 2.0.
A new OpenJPA plug-in is provided to enable you to use the dynamic
cache service as an L2 cache provider for OpenJPA 2.0. The DynaCache
OpenJPA plugin provides advanced monitoring and administration of
the data and query caches along with multi-JVM caching that leverages
the data replication service. All cache monitoring tools in the application
server, such as the cache monitor and the DynaCache MBean, work with
the OpenJPA L2 data and query caches.
- Support for key elements of Web Application Technologies, including:
- JavaServer Faces (JSF) 2.0 at a runtime level that uses the Apache
MyFaces 2.0 implementation
- JavaServer Pages (JSP) 2.2 and Unified Expression Language (EL)
2.2 specifications
- Java Servlet 3.0 specification
- The dynamic cache service provides servlet caching support for
the Java Servlet 3.0 specification.
- Support for the Web Services for Java EE
(JSR 109) Version 1.3 specification.
- Support for the JAX-WS Version 2.2 specification, which includes
but is not limited to the following key capabilities:
- Support for specifying transport-level security for Web Services
Description Language (WSDL) data acquisitions on the client side.
- Support for specifying policy sets and bindings for a service
reference that is different from the policy set attachment for the
service.
- Support for enabling and configuring WS-Addressing support on
a client or service by adding WS-Policy assertions into the WSDL document.
- Support for the JAXB Version 2.2 specification.
- Support for Java API for
RESTful Web Services (JAX-RS) 1.1 to simplify development of server-side
REST applications.
- Support for the HTTP servlets profile
aspects of JSR 196: Java Authentication
SPI for Containers (JASPI) specification. This support enables third-party
security providers to handle the Java Platform,
Enterprise Edition (Java EE)
authentication of HTTP request and response messages destined for
web applications.
- Support for java:global, java:app, and
java:module Java Naming and
Directory Interface (JNDI) names in applications that are deployed
on stand-alone servers or managed servers where the entire application
is deployed on one server.
- Support for Bean Validation 1.0 enables you to place the validation
logic in a single location and use it throughout the application.
- OSGi applications programming model
- The OSGi applications programming model helps you develop and
deploy modular applications that use both Java EE and OSGi technologies. You can design
and build applications and suites of applications from coherent, multiversion,
reusable OSGi bundles. Taking advantage of OSGi reduces complexity
and provides control and flexibility to maintain and evolve your applications.
Support for OSGi applications includes the following capabilities:
- Use the OSGi Enterprise Specification 4.2 Blueprint Container
for declarative assembly of components. This support simplifies unit
test outside of the application server.
- Compose isolated enterprise applications using multiple, multiversion
bundles that have dynamic life cycles.
- Deploy applications in archive files that contain only application-specific
content and metadata that points to shared bundles. This means that
application archive files can be smaller and that only one copy of
each shared bundle is loaded into memory.
- Extend application asset life, and improve reuse by deploying
existing web application archives (WAR files) as OSGi web application
bundles (WABs).
- Support applications that use versions of common utility classes,
distinct from the versions used internally by WebSphere Application Server, without having
to configure Java EE application
class loader policies.
- Improve modularity and simplify application maintenance and upgrade,
by using standard OSGi mechanisms to simultaneously load multiple
versions of classes in the same application.
- Use an integrated bundle repository, and configure the locations
of external repositories to support reuse through the provisioning
of bundles to applications.
- Deploy web applications that use the Java Servlet
3.0 Specification.
- Extend and scale running applications, as business needs change,
without changing the underlying application.
- Update a running application, only impacting those bundles affected
by the update.
- Service Component Architecture
(SCA) programming model
- Use the SCA support to increase reuse and accelerate innovative
application delivery and management in Service-Oriented Architecture
(SOA) environments. Key capabilities include:
- Extends existing application asset life and speed application
delivery by creating service compositions using POJOs, EJB 2.1, EJB
3.0, EJB 3.1, OSGi applications and Spring components, Java Servlets, and JavaScript for AJAX.
- Speeds application integration efforts through binding support
for Web Services, JMS, SCA and EJB 2.0, EJB 2.1, EJB 3.0, EJB 3.1
and OSGi applications components. SCA is the preferred approach for
exposing OSGi applications for use with other programming models,
such as JMS and EJB.
- Enables business logic to be exposed to Web 2.0 applications through
JSON-RPC & ATOM web feeds.
- Speeds the integration of data across disparate systems through Java Architecture for XML Binding
(JAXB) or Service Data Objects (SDO) 2.1.1 data representation.
- Improves deployment productivity through flexible service deployment
as a standard Java Archive (JAR)
.
- Separates business logic from implementation technology choices
to enable flexible deployment options and ease future maintenance.
- Is derived from open SOA Collaboration (osoa.org) SCA 1.0 specifications.
- Is based on the open-source Apache Tuscany project with IBM® and improves integration and
ease of use.
- Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) programming model
- Integrated SIP servlet support speeds development of converged
communication-enhanced applications. This product includes support
for SIP Servlet Specification 1.1, also referred to as Java™ Specification
Request (JSR) 289. Key benefits include but are not limited to the
following capabilities:
- Support for advanced application routing to provide application
developers control over how messages are routed between applications.
- Support for multihomed environments to simultaneously support
multiple interfaces from one cluster of SIP containers.
- Support for converged web services in a SIP container.
- A new utility object is provided with JSR 289 that makes it easier
to build back-to-back user agent applications (B2BUA Helper) .
- Support for SIP annotations and resource injection.
- Support for standard interfaces for building converged application
that incorporate both HTTP and SIP.
- Support for the Asynchronous Invocation API that provides a mechanism
to send work to a SIP application session that can reside on any server
in the cluster.
- Support for the RFC 3327 (Path), and RFC 3581 (Extension to the
Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) for Symmetric Response Routing)
is included. Also, partial support for RFC 5626 (Managing Client-Initiated
Connections in SIP) is provided.
Fast, flexible, and simplified application
foundation
WebSphere Application Server,
Version 8.0 includes the following
highlights to improve productivity and help deliver improved total
cost of ownership benefits:
- Simplified installation and maintenance
- Achieve faster value through simplified product installations,
updates, and uninstallations with integrated prerequisite and interdependency
checking by using IBM Installation
Manager.
- Installation Manager is a single installation program that loads
and installs product components from a structured collection of files
that is called a repository.
- Easily determine available product and maintenance packages, install
selected packages after prerequisite and interdependency checking,
and uninstall or roll back previously installed packages.
- Use remote or local repositories to install, modify, or update WebSphere Application Server, Version 8.0 products and related
components such as:
- Application Client for IBM WebSphere Application
Server
Pluggable Application Client for IBM WebSphere Application
Server
- IBM HTTP Server Version 8.0
- WebSphere Customization
Toolbox
- Edge Components
- WebSphere DMZ Secure
Proxy Server
- Web Server Plug-ins
- Improved productivity
- Increase your return on investment and improve the flexibility
of your business by making application services more reusable and
accessible to new users in an enterprise environment when you use
the following enhancements:
- Resource workload routing includes data source and connection
factory fail over and subsequent fail back from a predefined alternate
or backup resource. This function enables applications to easily recover
from resource outages, such as database failures, without requiring
you to embed alternate resource and configuration information. You
can tailor the resource fail over and fail back flexible configuration
options to meet your environment-specific and application needs.
- Support for connecting to multi-instance WebSphere MQ queue managers. You can provide
host and port information in the form of a connection name list, which
a connection factory or activation specification uses to connect to
a multi-instance queue manager.
- Support for singleton session enterprise beans as Java API for XML Web Services (JAX-WS) endpoints
- Specify a policy set and bindings for a
service reference that is different from the policy set attachment
for the service.
- Specify CustomProperties policy and binding
to set generic properties that are not supported in other policy types.
The CustomProperties policy provides an alternative way to set a binding
property instead of using the JAX-WS programming model to set the
property on the BindingProvider object.
- Simplified development of server-side REST applications using
Java™ API for RESTful Web Services (JAX-RS).
- Support for using Java Contexts and Dependency Injection (JCDI)
with JAX-RS. You can use JAX-RS root resources and providers in a
JCDI-enabled web application archive. As part of Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE) 6, you can take advantage of the JCDI
feature to make applications easier to develop while increasing maintainability.
- Extend the interactivity of Enterprise
and Web commerce applications with Communications Enabled Applications
(CEA) for integrated telephony and collaborative web services. Using
a single core application, you can enable multiple modes of communication.
The CEA capability delivers call control, notifications, and interactivity
and provides the platform for more complex communications.
- Install, uninstall, and update enterprise
application files by adding them to a monitored directory.
- Connect your applications to the latest versions of a wide array
of industry-leading databases to enable maximum deployment flexibility. WebSphere Application Server Version 8.0 has been tested with
the following new databases and JDBC drivers:
- Derby 10.5
- DataDirect Connect for Java Database
Connectivity (JDBC) driver V4.2
- Microsoft SQL Server
Enterprise 2008 R2
- Microsoft SQL Server
JDBC Driver, version 3.0
- Oracle 11g Standard Edition and Enterprise Release 2
- Oracle 11g Release 2 JDBC Driver
- Improved security
- You can securely build and deliver applications and environments
that use new capabilities in WebSphere Application Server Version 8.0 including the following
features:
- Support for OASIS Web Services Security SAML Token Profile 1.1
usage scenarios that use SAML Assertions as security tokens in web
services SOAP security to exchange client identity and other security
information across security domains.
- Support for JSR 196: Java Authentication SPI for Containers (JASPI)
specification, which enables third-party security providers to handle
the Java Platform, Enterprise
Edition (Java EE) authentication
of HTTP request and response messages destined for web applications.
- Support for configuring federated repositories
at the domain level in a multiple security domain environment.
- Propagate an LtpaToken2 cookie to downstream
web single sign-on applications using an application programming interface
(API).
- Import a LTPA key set from a file and add it to the security runtime
and configuration by using the importLTPAKeys command. You can also
use the exportLTPAKeys command to export a LTPA key set that is currently
being used by the runtime to a file.
- Generate SAML tokens and to propagate SAML
tokens in SOAP messages using the Web Services Security application
programming interfaces (WSS API). For web services clients, this
is an alternative solution to using policy set attachments. Both
SAML bearer subject confirmation method and SAML sender-vouches subject
confirmation methods are supported.
- Request SAML tokens from an external Security
Token Service (STS) and then propagate the SAML token in web services
request messages from a web services client using WSS APIs. Both
SAML bearer subject confirmation method and SAML sender-vouches subject
confirmation methods are supported.
- Manage self-issue SAML token configuration using wsadmin commands.
- Support for all security updates as defined
in the Java Servlet 3.0 specification
(JSR-315) , including the new servlet security annotations, use of
new programmatic security APIs, and the dynamic updating of the servlet
security configuration.
- Generate and consume tokens using WS-Trust
Issue and WS-Trust Validate requests for JAX-WS web services that
use Web Services Security. As a result of these requests, the login
module issues, validates, or exchanges tokens with a WS-Trust Security
Token Service, such as the service that is provided with the IBM Tivoli® Federated
Identity Manager.
- Enhancements to the security auditing service to assist with audit
compliance.
- Security configuration report now includes information about session
security, web attributes, and the HttpOnly setting to enable you to
get a more complete view of your server security settings
- More security features for the server are enabled by default for
enhanced security hardening including session security and requiring
SSL for IIOP communications.
- New browser attribute for single sign-on (SSO) LTPA cookies to
prevent client-side applications (such as Java scripts) from accessing cookies to mitigate
some cross-site scripting vulnerability.
- High performance
- Achieve total cost of ownership benefits through unmatched performance
and scalability characteristics including the following advantages:
- Provide high availability for a WebSphere MQ queue manager
that is connected to WebSphere Application Server by
specifying multiple connection names in your WebSphere Application Server definition for
the WebSphere MQ link
sender channel. If the active gateway queue manager fails, the service
integration bus can use this information to reconnect to a standby
gateway queue manager.
- Enhance performance by disabling WebSphere MQ functionality
in WebSphere Application Server, provided
you do not need to take advantage of any WebSphere MQ functionality. By default,
when a WebSphere Application Server process
or an application client process starts, and while this process is
running, an amount of processing is done to support WebSphere MQ-related function, regardless
of whether any WebSphere MQ-related
function is ever used.
- Cutting-edge performance for real applications in commercial environments.
Extensive Deployment Environments
WebSphere Application Server,
Version 8.0 includes the following
highlights to improve administration as you migrate existing applications
and infrastructures to virtual and Cloud deployments:
- Effective management
Focus resources on innovation instead of maintenance, and reduce
the costs of managing your environment with effective and simplified
management tools.
- Complete job manager actions and run jobs from a deployment manager.
The deployment manager administrative console has Jobs navigation
tree choices similar to those in the job manager administrative console.
- Collect Java dumps and core
files using the administrative console to help diagnose memory-related
or application server CPU utilization problems.
- Use the Reliability Availability and Serviceability
(RAS) granularity capabilities to assign different RAS attribute values
to different sets of requests within the same application server.
This capability improves the reliability, availability, and serviceability
of the application server and the requests it processes.
- Use batch processing capabilities provided in the application
server to accommodate applications that must perform batch work alongside
transactional applications.
- Store and access log, trace, System.err, and System.out information
produced by the application server or your applications quickly and
conveniently using the High Performance Extensible Logging (HPEL)
log and trace framework. HPEL logs can also be viewed with the new
administrative console log viewing functionality, which uses Web 2.0
technology to provide a powerful tabular view and simple mechanisms
to filter logs that are local or remote.
- Quickly recover a damaged node using the -asExistingNode parameter
of the addNode command.
- Access data from multiple components without causing timeouts
or other unwanted situations by sharing locks between transaction
branches. You can share locks between transaction branches when accessing
data where multiple DB2® Java Database Connectivity (JDBC)
connections exist between databases that are involved in the same
transaction, from the same server, or from different servers.
- Define and register a remote host target
with the job manager using the registerHost command. Unlike targets
that are WebSphere Application Server profiles
and are registered using the registerWithJobManager command at the
deployment manager or administrative agent, a remote host target is
not required to have any WebSphere Application Server products installed.
-
Enhance the output of application
properties files by running the AdminTask extractConfigProperties
command with the SimpleOutputFormat option. The option enables you
to easily locate and edit application property values. ![[Updated in July 2011]](../../deltaend.gif)
jul2011
- Use the new enableClientModule option to deploy client modules.
- View an SCA composite definition by exporting
it to a file using scripting, in addition to viewing the SCA composite
definition in the administrative console. By exporting an SCA composite
definition, you can preserve information about the composite.
- Export WSDL and XSD documents that are
used by an SCA composition unit using the administrative console,
in addition to using wsadmin scripting.
- Submit a job to manage profiles using
the manageprofiles job of the job manager to create, augment, or delete
a WebSphere Application Server profile.
- Create and manage target groups using the TargetGroup command
with the wsadmin tool.
- Simplified migration
Migrate your application server environment
using the WASPreUpgrade and WASPostUpgrade command-line tools or the
Migration Management tool graphical user interface (GUI). You can
migrate from WebSphere Application Server Version
6.0, 6.1, and 7.0 to WebSphere Application Server Version 8.0.