ISV Partners' Guide

Overview

This document describes the services and tools provided by BEA to facilitate your job, as a BEA Independent Software Vendor (ISV) partner, of making your applications easy to use and delivering them to your customers. It begins, in this chapter, with the following topics:

Types of ISVs—For the purposes of this document, defines the classes of BEA partners addressed by this document
ISV Resources, Services, and Tools—Describes the resources that BEA provides to partners who distribute either BEA WebLogic Server or their own custom applications that interoperate with WebLogic Server
ISV Tasks and Documentation Links—Shows which tasks should be performed by each type of BEA partner and provides links to instructions for those tasks

Types of ISVs

To improve its ability to distribute or host WebLogic Server and enhancements to it, BEA works in partnership with many ISVs. The following table defines the various types of ISVs that work with BEA in this way.

Table 1-1 Types of ISVs that Partner with BEA

ISV partners who deliver this type of product . . .	Distribute . . .
Embedded	WebLogic Server, or one or more components of WebLogic Server, packaged with their application. (The WebLogic Server software being distributed, in combination with the ISV application, is referred to in this document as the ISV's value-added solution.)
Layered	Prepackaged WebLogic applications that run on WebLogic Server, but that do not include WebLogic Server. It is assumed that customers who buy layered products have valid WebLogic Server installations.
JRockit	BEA JRockit, either as a stand-alone product or with the ISV's value-added solution.
Complementary	Products that interoperate with WebLogic Server, but that do not necessarily run as WebLogic applications, such as development tools, security providers, content management providers, management tools, and monitoring tools.

ISV Resources, Services, and Tools

BEA provides the following resources, services, and tools for its partners:

This section describes each of these resources in detail.

BEA Partner Program

The BEA Partner Program is a forum for jointly developing business opportunities with technology companies that redistribute BEA products, either as stand-alone software or as part of a package that includes their own software. The goal of this program is to provide partners with resources that can accelerate time-to-market profitability, such as technical services, education, and marketing resources.

Partners worldwide benefit from services such as:

Discounts on instructor-led classes, technical Webcasts, and Web-based product training
Comprehensive technical services and support to software developers
Validation program—a framework for verifying the technical readiness of partner solutions that complement BEA's platform
Certification program—qualifies applicants for development, implementation, and administration competencies with WebLogic Server

This document, ISV Partners' Guide, is written for partners who enroll in the BEA Partner Program as a Software Partner. BEA Software Partners include Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) developing technology that complements and extends the functionality of BEA WebLogic Server. BEA Software Partners also include Application Service Providers: vendors who provide full solutions, including hardware, hosting, software, and services.

If you are not already enrolled in the BEA Partner Program and you would like to enroll, complete the following steps:

Verify that your target hardware-software configurations are supported by WebLogic Server. For a complete list of supported configurations, see Supported Configurations for WebLogic Server 9.0.

Learn more about the program at the BEA Partner Program Web site: http://www.bea.com/partners

Enroll in the BEA Partner Program at the same Web site.

Software Bundle

As a benefit of the BEA Partner Program, partners who enroll receive a set of software licenses and media, which includes test server licenses for BEA Tuxedo with Jolt and WebLogic Server. These licenses give partners the ability to load the WebLogic Server software onto test servers for several purposes: performing QA and pre-production testing, creating demonstrations, and creating and testing proof-of-concept applications and other prototypes in configurations that potentially require a great deal of scalability.

For comprehensive information about the software and licenses, enrolled partners can access the BEA Partner Program Guide at the following URL:

ftp://pdownload:BUY_ME@ftpna2.bea.com/pub/program/BEA_Partner_Program_Guide.pdf

ISV Redistribution License

The WebLogic Server package available from BEA normally includes a license that prohibits the buyer from redistributing the software. However, for partners who are in the business of redistributing WebLogic Server, BEA provides the ability for ISVs to generate a license for their customers so that they can run the WebLogic Server software that is embedded with the ISV's application. This generated license is called the ISV redistribution license.

Although the function of all ISV redistribution licenses is the same—to provide customers of ISVs with the ability to run the version of the WebLogic Server software distributed by the ISV—each license is unique, customized to control the WebLogic Server components that customers of a particular ISV partner can use at run time.

ISV partners who have a current agreement to redistribute WebLogic Server receive software that allows them to generate both an ISV redistribution license and a version of the WebLogic Server software that is associated with that license. The ISV redistribution license allows ISV customers to run the specific WebLogic Server software associated with that license.

To find out how to generate an ISV redistribution license and package it with the WebLogic Server software developed by your company, see Distributing WebLogic Server.

WebLogic Server Installation and Configuration Tools

To help you create ISV-ready WebLogic Server configurations that your customers can install and configure easily, BEA provides the following tools:

Installation Program

BEA's installation program makes it easy to install either the entire WebLogic Server product or individual components of it—whichever you prefer. When run in noninteractive or silent mode, the installation program makes it even easier for your customers to install WebLogic Server.

Configuration Wizard

The Configuration Wizard is a stand-alone Java application you can use to create the domain in which your ISV application is developed or run. A domain is the basic administrative unit for WebLogic Server. It consists of an interrelated set of WebLogic Server resources that are managed as a unit and includes one or more WebLogic Server instances. It may also include WebLogic Server clusters.

Depending on how you deliver your value-added solution to your customers, you may want them to run the Configuration Wizard after they have installed WebLogic Server to set up their environments to run your software.

Domain Template Builder

A domain template defines the full set of resources within a domain, including infrastructure components, applications, services, security options, and general environment and operating system parameters. After you have created a domain for your ISV application, and added resources and various customizations to it, you can use the Domain Template Builder to create a domain template or extension template of that domain. When users subsequently create or extend a domain based on that template, the domain is automatically configured with all the resources required to run your value-added solution.

pack and unpack Commands

Two new commands are available to simplify the creation of domain templates and domains, including Managed Server domains:

The pack command creates a template archive (.jar) file that contains a snapshot of either an entire domain or the part of a domain needed to create a Managed Server directory hierarchy on a remote machine in the domain.
The unpack command creates a domain directory or Managed Server domain directory using a template created with the pack command. It also creates necessary start scripts, and certain security and configuration files for the domain.

When the unpack command is run from a script in your customer's environment, you can provide an automatic and seamless process for configuring the environment required for your value-added solution.

WebLogic Scripting Tool

The WebLogic Scripting Tool (WLST) is a new command-line interface that you use to configure WebLogic Server instances and domains, and manage and persist WebLogic Server configuration changes.

WLST interprets commands either interactively, as they are supplied, one at a time, from a command prompt, or in batches, when they are supplied in a file (script) or embedded in your Java code. You can use the scripting tool online (connected to a running server) or offline (not connected to a running server).

Offline, WLST provides access to persisted configuration information. You can create a new domain, or update an existing one, without connecting to a running WebLogic Server.

Silent Installation and Configuration

By creating a simple shell script or command file that sequentially runs silent-mode installation and a WLST script to configure one or more domains for running your value-added solution, you can simplify even further your customers' work of installing and configuring WebLogic Server. This approach gives your customers a streamlined process, right out of the box, so that they can start running your applications more quickly and easily.

Registry API

The BEA Registry API is a Java package included with WebLogic Server that provides a means to access information about a BEA software installation, such as which products and which versions of those products are installed. Use of the BEA Registry API gives ISV applications a more manageable, predictable means of interoperating with BEA software as usage environments change.

Administration Console Extensions

The WebLogic Server Administration Console is a J2EE Web application that uses the WebLogic Portal framework, Apache Beehive, Apache Struts, Java Server Pages (JSP), and other standard technologies to render its user interface (UI) and content. This architecture makes the console highly extensible, enabling you to add or replace console content and to change the logos, styles, and colors without modifying the files that are installed with WebLogic Server. For example, you can add a portlet that provides custom monitoring and management facilities for your applications.

The extensibility features of the Administration Console enable ISVs to do the following:

Rebrand, that is, the ability to change the look and feel attributes of the Administration Console, such as colors, logos, and fonts
Add a custom portlet that exposes monitoring information or configuration data for an application, a custom security provider, or other ISV-built resource
Add and remove fields from existing console pages
Add and remove tabs to the existing console
Build a highly simplified console containing pages for only the relevant features of the ISV's application
Divert help requests to an alternate URL and modify the set of tasks displayed in the How do I portlet.

Customizations to the Administration Console are provided via a console extension, which is a JAR file you create that contains the resources for a subsection of a WebLogic Portal Web application. Once deployed, the extension becomes part of the Administration Console: it is secured by the WebLogic Server security realm, it is navigable to other sections of the Administration Console, and if the extension modifies WebLogic Server resources, it participates in the change control process.

For more information, see Extending the Administration Console.

Partner Support

After you enroll in the BEA Partner Program, you receive access to a comprehensive set of tools and resources that support the entire scope of partner enablement, training, software development, marketing and sales assistance, and support. For more information about partner support provided by the BEA Partner Program, see About BEA Partner Support.

ISV Tasks and Documentation Links

BEA collaborates with Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) who sell the following types of products:

Embedded
Layered
Stand-alone BEA JRockit
Complementary

Table 1-2 describes the job required to sell and deliver each type of product, recommends a procedure for performing that job, and provides links to instructions, in this document, for each procedure.

Table 1-2 ISV Tasks and Related Documentation

If you are an ISV selling this type of product . . .	Your job consists of . . .	Complete the following procedure . . .
Embedded	Redistributing part or all of BEA WebLogic Server	1. Enroll in the Partner Program. See BEA Partner Program. 2. Back up your `license.bea` file. See Using the Partner Software Bundle. 3. Install the partner software bundle. See Using the Partner Software Bundle. 4. Create the ISV redistribution license and link it to the WebLogic Server software you will redistribute. 5. Create a package to distribute to your customers, ensuring that the ISV redistribution license and the WebLogic Server software to which it is linked are installed correctly. See Distributing WebLogic Server. Note: For instructions for distributing custom software along with any or all of WebLogic Server, see steps 3 through 6 in the procedure for ISVs of layered products, later in this table.
Layered	Distributing a prepackaged WebLogic application that runs on WebLogic Server	1. Enroll in the Partner Program. See BEA Partner Program. 2. Install the partner software bundle. See Using the Partner Software Bundle. 3. Build, test, and deploy the application. See Building WebLogic Server Applications. 4. Configure the WebLogic domain in which the application is meant to be run. Then create a template or template extension of that domain. For general information about configuring WebLogic Server, see Configuring and Installing WebLogic Applications. For information about the Configuration Wizard, see Configuration Wizard. For information about the Template Builder, see Domain Template Builder. 5. Create an appropriate distribution mechanism (such as an installation program or a Web download) for your application. If you want to deliver your product with a script that runs the Configuration Wizard in silent mode, write that script now. (See Domain Template Builder.) 6. Create user documentation for your application. If you want your customers to run the Configuration Wizard to create a domain based on a custom template or a template extension you have provided, write instructions for doing so. See Preparing Customer Documentation.
JRockit	Redistributing the BEA JRockit JVM	1. Enroll in the Partner Program. See BEA Partner Program. 2. Familiarize yourself with the BEA JRockit J2SE 5.0 JDK, and with BEA's policies for providing and supporting it. 3. Learn about how BEA distributes JRockit and provides support, for this product, to partners and their customers. See Supporting and Distributing BEA JRockit.
Complementary	Creating non-BEA software for use in a WebLogic Server environment	1. Enroll in the Partner Program. See BEA Partner Program. 2. If you are creating management or monitoring tools, see Creating JMX-Compatible Management Systems.