What else can WebLogic Server do?

There are lots of other issues that BigTel engineers will solve using WebLogic Server technology over the next few weeks:

• They'll use WebLogic SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) and WebLogic ACLs (access control lists) to protect their WebLogic Server applications so that field engineers can use them over the Internet and over unsecured lines.

• They'll use the WebLogic COM-to-RMI bridge capabilities to write Java applications that can use business logic in legacy Microsoft COM objects.

• They'll also use WebLogic GUI Beans in a popular IDE with drag-and-drop tools to build GUIs for several different Java user front-ends, and then they'll make those applications foolproof by publishing them to their clients with WebLogic ZAC. ZAC makes installation of a Java application as simple as double clicking an installer icon, and then ZAC automatically keeps the application up-to-date as the IS department publishes new versions.

• They'll further refine their use of connection pools to moderate the use of scarce resources, like database connections. They'll set up connection pools for different groups of users who have different needs and priorities for service.

• Using WebLogic JNDI (Java Naming and Directory Services), they'll integrate the configuration information for their application with the corporate LDAP server.

• And they'll start upgrading some old legacy apps by writing more Enterprise JavaBeans, streamlining development and eventually making life generally easier for everybody in the department.

And all this will happen well before their deadline.

So how does the story end? Ms. Veep gets a big promotion and a letter of appreciation from company headquarters, the field engineers and the field engineer managers have a big party to celebrate their new productivity, and Mr. Imayess has time to take a well-deserved and long-delayed vacation in Tahiti -- without his beeper.

The Java engineer -- well, the Java engineer and the rest of the development team get to write more Java code with WebLogic Server. They keep exploring WebLogic Server and keep finding out great new things they can do with it. And, after a while, the whole company is quietly running on WebLogic Server.