WebLogic Server 10.3 Tech Preview Highlights

BEA has just released a Technical Preview of WebLogic Server 10.3. This
release focuses on three enhancement areas that we believe will improve
the developer experience for you if are an existing WebLogic Server
developer, or that will attract you to WebLogic Server if you are not
currently using the product. The first enhancement area is making WebLogic
Server more "lightweight". The term "lightweight" means different things
to different people, including characteristics such as "faster download",
"smaller disk footprint", "less memory consumption", "faster deployment",
or "faster server startup". The primary underlying requirement is to
enable developers to be more productive by reducing the resources and
time consumed by the server and server-related actions. WebLogic Server
10.3 includes new and updated support for Web Services standards,
especially OASIS WS-* standards such as WS-Security, WS-Policy, WS-Reliable
Messaging and WS-Addressing. WebLogic Server provides an environment for
developing and hosting SOA Services, and is the foundation for BEA's SOA
offering. WebLogic Server 10.3 delivers new features for developing
services and application for Service-Oriented Architectures. First we're
enhancing Web Services standards support for both JAX-RPC (J2EE 1.4) and
JAX-WS (Java EE 5) Web Services. Coming soon will be Service Component
Architecture (SCA) support, which will enable standards-based development
of composite applications. This will be made available in coming months
in preview form as an add-on to the WebLogic Server 10.3 technology
preview. Another enhancement area is enterprise technology integration
and standards updates. WebLogic Server applications must coexist and
interoperate with other technologies via de facto or de jure standards
to support development and execution of secure, high-performance and
high-availability enterprise applications. We've updated our support to
meet key customer and developer requirements in this area... The
Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) is the standard for exchange
of security information in order to enable single sign-on across security
domains. This WebLogic Server 10.3 Technology Preview supports the SAML
2.0 standard (and brings forward existing SAML 1.1 support) to enable
single sign-on for Web apps as well as Web services. More Information