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| e-docs > Tuxedo > Release Notes > BEA Tuxedo 8.1 Release Notes |
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Release Notes
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BEA Tuxedo 8.1 Release Notes
BEA Tuxedo Release 8.1
Date: December 2007
This document contains release notes for the BEA Tuxedo 8.1 release, including ATMI, CORBA, BEA Jolt, and SNMP Agent.
Release Notes Topics
This document includes the following topics:
About This BEA Tuxedo Release
BEA Tuxedo software provides businesses and organizations that depend on mission-critical applications with the flexibility of two proven programming interfaces: an Application-to-Transaction Monitor Interface (ATMI) and a Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) interface. Both interfaces use the BEA Tuxedo infrastructure, which has demonstrated, through years of use in large, transaction-based, production systems, that it is powerful, robust, scalable, manageable, and reliable.
This topic includes the following sections:
What's New and Improved
BEA Tuxedo Release 8.1 includes the following new features and enhancements:
BEA Tuxedo is now localized for the Japanese environment through installation screens and message catalogs.
A new buffer type and FML field type known as MBSTRING allows BEA Tuxedo APIs to send strings that consist of multibyte characters. In addition, BEA Tuxedo passes the character set encoding name and MBSTRINGs are automatically convert from one encoding representation to another.
Note: Refer to Multibyte Character Support Limitations, for limitations to the MBSTRING feature.
BEA Tuxedo includes the public Xerces XML parser on the software DR-ROM. The Xerces XML parser is enhanced to include local DTD cache.
BEA Tuxedo and BEA WebLogic Tuxedo Connector (WTC) can share a common user database which is stored in a BEA WebLogic Server LDAP database.
The Tuxedo Domain gateway is streamlined to provide up to 20% faster throughput.
Note: Specific performance improvements are highly application-dependent.
Each remote domain can have its own CONNECTION_POLICY setting.
You can enable TCP and Application-level keepalive for a domain gateway connection to provide better response to network or system failures.
You can set the Bridge to run as a multithreaded process allowing it to use more than one CPU on a multiprocessor system. This can result in increased throughput of up to 10%.
Note: Specific performance improvements are highly application-dependent.
The maximum length of parameters in the UBBCONFIG and DMCONFIG files representing most pathnames or network addresses have increased to 256 bytes.
A new parameter, MAXTRANTIME, is available to limit the transaction timeout value system-wide so transactions will not have unreasonably lengthy timeouts.
The C++ client now supports WebLogic Server load balancing and method level failover. WebLogic Server clusters can provide IIOP clients with information about what nodes in the cluster support a given object. That information along with a load balancing algorithm selected in the deployment of a WebLogic application, allow the C++ client to select a node in the cluster to process a request. That information is also used to retry a request in the event of a communication or system failure. This last feature is called method level failover, as the client will try the request against the remaining node(s) in the cluster that has the object available to it.
For a discussion of each these features, see the What's New link on the BEA Tuxedo online documentation.
Installation Upgrade Considerations
Before installing the product, be sure to review the product issues in "Known Problems in BEA Tuxedo 8.1" on page 49. For complete information on upgrading to BEA Tuxedo 8.1, see "Upgrading the BEA Tuxedo System to Release 8.1" in Installing the BEA Tuxedo System.
Hot Upgrade From Tuxedo 8.0 to Tuxedo 8.1
In order to perform a hot upgrade from BEA Tuxedo 8.0 to BEA Tuxedo 8.1, you must be running Tuxedo 8.0 rolling patch 22 at a minimum.
Unsupported Code Samples and Tools Web Page
BEA Tuxedo customers can download unsupported code samples and developer tools from the BEA Systems, Inc. dev2dev online site. Start on the following Web page:
http://dev2dev.bea.com/index.jsp
If you do not already have a BEA dev2dev login, links are provided with instructions for free membership.
Software and Documentation Problems Fixed in This Release
The following tables list the software and documentation problems that have been fixed in Release 8.1. Problems are listed by CR (Change Request) number.
Any software or documentation fixes that are made to Release 8.1 after these BEA Tuxedo Release 8.1 Release Notes are printed will be reported in updates to this section in the online version of these Release Notes. The online version is available through the BEA Tuxedo 8.1 Release Notes link at
http://e-docs.bea.com
Problems Fixed in This Release
Table 2 lists problems fixed in BEA Tuxedo 8.1.
MBSTRING Enhancement The following MBSTRING enhancement (CR103546) is available in BEA Tuxedo 8.1 rolling patch 19. This enhancement enables MBSTRING to be self-describing if sendlen is set to zero. Some Tuxedo buffers provide a capability for the buffer to determine its own length if the user does not provide it. This self-describing behavior is triggered when an application sets the sendlen argument of a Tuxedo function call (for example, tpcall()) to zero. Rolling Patch 19 adds this self-describing capability for MBSTRING. Note: Refer to How to Obtain Patches, for information on how to obtain rolling patches. Implementation This self-describing behavior is implemented by adding the following:
The _mbspresend() addition requires any user who customizes Tuxedo buffers to rebuild their applications.
Safe/Unsafe Encoding Names
The idea of safe or unsafe encoding names specified by TPMBENC comes from whether or not the multibyte character data for these encodings can contain embedded NULLs. Because the _mbspresend() function uses strlen() to determine the length of the data, an embedded NULL causes the length to be incorrectly set and the wrong number of data bytes are sent.
The default list in sendlen0_unsafe_tpmbenc has the multibyte Unicode encoding names (in uppercase and lowercase, for convenience) which can contain embedded NULLs. You should modify this list as application administration or performance is considered.
BEA Tuxedo Software Components
The BEA Tuxedo software consists of the following components:
The ATMI software enables you to build scalable ATMI applications using either of two programming languages: C or COBOL. This software includes the following components:
The CORBA software enables you to build scalable CORBA applications in the C++ programming language. This software includes the following components:
BEA Jolt is a Java-based interface to the BEA Tuxedo system that extends the functionality of existing BEA Tuxedo applications to include intranet- and Internet-wide availability.
BEA SNMP Agent for BEA Tuxedo and BEA WebLogic Enterprise is a Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) agent that enables BEA Tuxedo and BEA WebLogic Enterprise applications to be managed from an Enterprise Management Console.
Software Component Licensing Requirements
For BEA Tuxedo 8.1, all software components are included on the product CD-ROMs. A single license is issued when you purchase the product that enables the components that you want to use.
Licensing is used to enable the product components as follows:
This license enables the following components:
This license enables 128-bit encryption as well as the components enabled by the basic license.
Note: It will not be possible for a customer to use 128-bit encryption for data messages without obtaining a 128-bit encryption license from BEA. However, 128-bit encryption can be used for BEA Tuxedo Administration Console messages without obtaining a 128-bit license.
This license enables the BEA Jolt software as well as the components enabled by the basic license.
This license enables all product components.
BEA Tuxedo 8.1 requires that all customers upgrade their licenses to a new format; previous licenses will not work. Customers with existing support contracts may use one of the following methods to obtain a license upgrade:
Supported Platforms
BEA Tuxedo software runs on the platforms listed in the following sections. BEA has certified these platforms for development and production use with the BEA Tuxedo release 8.1 product. BEA can provide customer support only for these platforms. Note that although BEA has attempted to implement the BEA Tuxedo software in a manner that conforms to industry-standards, it is not feasible for BEA to certify its use with all third-party databases, ORBs, and other products.
Additional software ports and certifications may continue after the initial release of BEA Tuxedo 8.1. For information regarding subsequent ports and certifications, please refer to the Platform Support information on the BEA web site at the following link:
http://www.bea.com/products/tuxedo/platforms.shtml
Platform information is maintained under the "Requirements" option under the Tuxedo product page.
Note: More detailed platform information is maintained on the secured eSupport portal under "Product News and EOL Updates." A customer eSupport password login is required. The eSupport link is:
BEA Tuxedo Server Platforms
The BEA Tuxedo server components run on the following platforms:
Note: Microsoft Windows Advanced Server (32-bit) data sheet information is applicable to Microsoft Windows XP (Professional) systems.
BEA Tuxedo Client Platforms
The BEA Tuxedo client software runs on the following platforms:
BEA Tuxedo Administration Console Platforms
The BEA Tuxedo Administration Console software runs on all the platforms listed in the section "BEA Tuxedo Server Platforms" on page 24.
Note: While the Administration Console software cannot be installed on Microsoft Windows 98 systems, you can use the Web browser on your Microsoft Windows 98 system to access and use the Administration Console software on any BEA Tuxedo server system that is accessible over your network.
BEA Security Service Platforms
The BEA Tuxedo Security Service (56-bit or 128-bit) runs on the following platforms:
Note: Microsoft Windows Advanced Server (32-bit) data sheet information is applicable to Microsoft Windows XP (Professional) systems.
BEA Tuxedo 8.1 offers two type encryption services: secure sockets layer (SSL) and link-level encryption (LLE). The SSL and LLE encryption software is included on the BEA Tuxedo 8.1 distribution and is an integral part of the installation procedure. You also configure the SSL software during the installation.
Before you can use BEA Tuxedo Security Service software on any of the platforms listed above, you must first install it according to one of the following options:
Software Environment
The following sections list the software that can run on each platform supported by the BEA Tuxedo software.
Software Supported by Each Platform
Table 3 lists the software supported by each platform that can run the BEA Tuxedo software
.