Oracle completed its acquisition of BEA Systems, Inc (an acknowledged player in the Enterprise Java middleware field) in late April 2008. These products illustrate that Oracle is making good progress in combining technologies from the two companies into a unified product offering, always a challenge following such an acquisition.

Oracle and BEA both have been active participators in the Eclipse community.

For organizations using the Eclipse IDE, Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse delivers a certified set of Eclipse plug-ins to accelerate database, Java, Java Enterprise Edition (Java EE) and Oracle WebLogic Server development.

New development features of Oracle WebLogic Server are supported by this release, including FastSwap, the ability to redefine Java classes without redeployment; helping developers streamline lengthy iterative development cycles.

With Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse, Eclipse 3.4, Eclipse 3.3 and Oracle WebLogic Sever customers will be able to develop, debug and deploy applications to Oracle WebLogic Server 10g R3, in addition to earlier versions, either locally or remotely.

The Enterprise Pack for Eclipse will be the basis for Oracle's strategic Eclipse offering, combining the best Java EE development features of Oracle Workshop for WebLogic and Oracle's independent contributions to the Eclipse platform.

Developers can leverage their expertise in Eclipse with the capabilities of Oracle Fusion Middleware. The pack plugs into existing Eclipse IDE and will support development with technologies including JEE, Java SE, JavaServer Faces, Web Services, XML, Spring Framework, Struts, Database Development, and CSS & Javascript.

Java EE 5 introduced the ability to redefine a class at runtime without dropping its ClassLoader or abandoning existing instances. This allows containers to reload altered classes without disturbing running applications, vastly speeding up iterative development cycles and improving the overall development and testing experiences.

With FastSwap, Java classes are redefined in-place without reloading the Java ClassLoader, thereby having the decided advantage of fast turnaround times. This means that you do not have to wait for an application to redeploy and then navigate back to wherever you were in the Web page flow. Instead, you can make your changes, auto compile, and then see the effects immediately.

Additional technical information about the pack is available here.

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BEA  Eclipse  Enterprises  Java EE  Middleware  Oracle  WebLogic