Appendix C. Using WebLogic Workshop 8.1 with WebLogic Server

by Kunal Mittal

IN THIS APPENDIX

• Workshop 8.1—More Than an IDE

• Workshop 8.1—More Than a Web Services Tool

• What Can You Do with Workshop 8.1?

• Development Using Workshop

• Debugging and Testing Using Workshop

• Compatibility of Workshop 8.1 with Workshop 7.0

• Service-Oriented Development in Workshop

According to the research firm Gartner, Inc., there is a need for a tool that simplifies the development of Java applications on the Java platform. Rapid application development (RAD) toolsets will continue to grow in demand and popularity. WebLogic Workshop is the tool from BEA that addresses this requirement of the Java developer community.

If you're considering the BEA WebLogic Platform or even just WebLogic Server 8.1, or talking to anyone from BEA, you've surely heard the buzz around BEA WebLogic Workshop and how it plays a critical role in the BEA WebLogic Platform 8.1 release. The entire release has been closely focused around Workshop. At BEA eWorld 2003, where BEA announced the WebLogic Platform 8.1, the focus on Workshop was extraordinary, as proven by the number of people talking about the tool. The eWorld 2003 theme of "Convergence" describes the new release of Workshop accurately. All the different GUI tools that were packaged with products such as WebLogic Integration, WebLogic Portal, and WebLogic Server as a part of the BEA WebLogic Platform 7.0 have now been integrated into a single, consistent tool—namely, Workshop.

In this appendix, we go over the origins of Workshop and the role it plays in the BEA world. We uncover the positioning and strategy of Workshop and motivate the key features that it provides towards a service-oriented architecture (SOA).