Oracle’s Middleware refers to a family of products ranging from application development tools, applications servers, and integration solutions to identity management, collaboration, and business intelligence reporting.
Also called Fusion Middleware (FMW)
Oracle Weblogic is the key middleware component.
The first product was Oracle Application Server in 1998. This contained a basic application server, Oracle Form Server & Reports Server. OAS transformed into the Internet Application Server (iAS). The iAS became the bedrock for hosting Oracle E-Business Suite applications.
Oracle’s Middleware stack grew with the acquisition of BEA’s Weblogic. iAS development gradually stopped and Weblogic became the flagship application server from Oracle.
Oracle, in due course, acquired a large number of content, integration & access management products. All of these products were, in a manner of speaking, re-branded as a member of the Oracle Middleware family of products. Hence Oracle Middleware is a loose nomenclature for a large set of products that may not readily form part of any specific functional segment.
The important middleware products from a license compliance management perspective are:
Weblogic Server editions create challenges in license compliance:
This is one of the most common issues of license non-compliance in small and medium-sized users of Oracle E-Business Suite. The need to license different components of the middleware is not, many a time, clarified to customers during the initial purchase of the applications. This leads to unintentional non-compliance with huge risk exposures.
The rules for Oracle Middleware are complex because of the large number of features that get enabled at the time of installation. Usage of the different products need to be carefully studied. We have realised that Oracle’s own teams are ill-equipped to get to the root evidence of usage.