Oracle WebLogic Portal O R A C L E S T A T EM EN T O F D I R E C T IO N F E B R U A R Y 2016
Disclaimer The following is intended to outline our general product direction. It is intended for information purposes only, and may not be incorporated into any contract. It is not a commitment to deliver any material, code, or functionality, and should not be relied upon in making purchasing decisions. The development, release, and timing of any features or functionality described for Oracle s products remains at the sole discretion of Oracle. ORACLE WEBLOGIC PORTAL STATEMENT OF DIRECTION
Executive Summary This document provides an overview of Oracle WebLogic Portal s Statement of Direction. It is intended solely to provide guidance on the future direction of the product and the options you have to protect your investment or plan the application migration to Oracle WebCenter.» Premium support on WebLogic Portal 10g (WLP) will now be available till Dec 2018 and extended support till Dec 2021. WLP customers can upgrade their licenses and deployment to Oracle WebCenter at their own pace while continuing to receive extended support. Oracle plans no forced upgrades or migrations.» Oracle is not planning any major functional enhancements for the native WLP feature -set other than bug fixes and minor updates to certifications.» Consider the following options to protect your investments in WLP or to migrate your application to Oracle WebCenter:» WebLogic Portal. Upgrade to latest WLP 10.3.x to stay current on certifications as well as get extended support timelines (beyond December of 2018).» WebCenter Portal. Migrate to Oracle WebCenter Portal (WCP) in a phased manner by potentially reusing the WSRP-based portlets and your business logic.» WebCenter Sites. Migrate to Oracle WebCenter Sites (WCS) if you are using WLP to primarily serve public facing pages.» Oracle Sites Cloud Service. Migrate to Sites Cloud Service to take advantage of its open, business-user friendly UI to rapidly build websites and to integrate with Oracle s cloud service offerings and business applications. Introduction Oracle s portal strategy is driven by market and technology trends such as demand for a contextual and personalized user experience, embedded social capabilities, knowledge worker tooling, support for mobile devices, rapid business application integration, and support for light weight Web Oriented Architecture (WOA) and Representational State Transfer (REST), to deliver a compelling user experience. To help Oracle s customers adopt these new architectures, it offers WebCenter. Customers using BEA portal products, specifically WebLogic Portal, can continue to develop using them in a way that protects their investments while also outlining a vision and a strategy to converge with the best of Oracle s user experience platform and portal capabilities. Oracle provides you extended support timelines for different portal platforms allowing you to migrate to the converged platform on a flexible timeline. 1 ORACLE WEBLOGIC PORTAL STATEMENT OF DIRECTION
Oracle s Portal Strategy Oracle s WebCenter Portal is the flexible platform built to deliver modern user experience. With the latest 12c release, it brings unprecedented usability across channels, seamless integration with WebCenter components, and rapid application integration. Remote portlet technology allows interop with your existing Portal technologies. Oracle w ill continue to invest in WCP to improve core portal functionalities, to address the new opportunities in digital experiences, collaboration, business process automation, tighter integration amongst the WebCenter products, and to ease the adoption of Oracle s cloud services. Consequent of this, Oracle recommends you to migrate your investments on other portal technologies to WebCenter product suite: WebLogic Portal Oracle Portal WebCenter Interaction Sun Portal WebCenter Figure 1. Migrate portal technologies to WebCenter Additionally, Oracle Sites Cloud Service, released in 2015, enables you to rapidly build and publish mobile-first, responsive, marketing and community w ebsites bringing documents, content, and other business functions of Oracle s Cloud Services. You can create application components to integrate with other businesses and cloud systems including a variety of third-party applications to extend engagement. WebLogic Portal Releases and Direction WebLogic Portal 10.3.2, shipped in 2010, w as a significant feature bearing release on the 10g WLP architecture. Since then, WLP releases 10.3.4 through 10.3.7 carried certifications against the latest software configurations apart from bug fixes. There are no major functional enhancements being planned for the native WLP feature-set. Oracle may release bundle patches w ith fixes for critical bugs and minor updates to certifications. Customers are encouraged to upgrade to the latest version of WLP depending on their current business and technical requirements. 2 ORACLE WEBLOGIC PORTAL STATEMENT OF DIRECTION
Next Steps Oracle recommends you to consider these options to protect your investment and to move it to WebCenter platform: Short Term Extended Support until Dec 2021 Upgrade to the latest version of 10.3.x Inter-op betw een WLP and WCP Long Term Continue on latest version of 10.3.x Migrate to WebCenter Portal/Sites Migrate to Oracle Sites Cloud Service Figure 2. Short and long term strategy of using WLP Oracle w ill provide guidance and best practices to help WLP customers take advantage of the latest WebCenter technologies. WSRP portlets in WLP can be consumed in WCP. Consider cleanly refactoring your business logic and build a REST façade on it. This aids its deployment into your application server and use it w ith WCP, WCS, SCS, and your native mobile applications avoiding the need for WLP runtime. If you are using WLP to primarily serve public pages, consider migrating to WebCenter Sites. Not all features of WLP w ill directly map into the new er products. Some migration w ill likely be necessary for specific components or features. Summary and Recommendations Oracle s Portal strategy provides extensive investment protection for the current portal products while merging the capabilities and strengths of each individual product into an extensible, modern, and unified WebCenter platform that provides a smooth path for each individual product. Current WebLogic Portal customers are encouraged to upgrade to the latest release of WLP 10g and w ork with their Oracle account teams and partners to evaluate WebCenter Portal, WebCenter Content, WebCenter Sites, and Oracle Sites Cloud Service as a w ay to get immediate value from key components of the unified WebCenter platform. Customers are also encouraged to assess their future requirements and to engage w ith Oracle to assist them chart out the ideal platform to serve their business needs. As alw ays, Oracle welcomes your feedback and input on its strategic product direction. Oracle s overarching goal is to ensure it meet your portal requirements by providing a robust and reliable combination of contemporary technologies. Feel free to contact your account team w ith questions or to request an in-depth briefing on portals and Oracle s future WebCenter strategies. 3 ORACLE WEBLOGIC PORTAL STATEMENT OF DIRECTION
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