Oracle delivers converged app server

Oracle this week delivered a new version of its core application server designed to help service providers combine Internet and communications development and service delivery capabilities on a carrier-grade platform.

Oracle Converged Application Server 4.0 is part of Oracle’s recently-announced service delivery portfolio, which represents the consolidation of its own carrier software platforms with those of recent acquisition BEA Systems. At that time, Oracle announced the Services Gatekeeper 4.0, a platform focused on helping carriers open up their networks to third-party application and service providers.

The new application server is a fundamental component of Oracle’s service delivery portfolio, and also was built with a focus on opening up development and resources to a broader array of content partners, said Ty Wang, Oracle’s senior director of product management.

“Overall, this supports the trend of the convergence of the Web and telco worlds,” Wang said. “It combines Java and a SIP app server and interfaces to talk to multiple networks on the southbound side.”

The app server is a rebranding of the former BEA WebLogic SIP server. But it also represents an “overall refactoring of the products we acquired from BEA,” Wang said. “We injected assets into it like data-caching, scalability and real-time performance capabilities to make it better.”

To that end, the server supports a key new Java standard, Java Request Specification (JSR) 289, which represents the industry’s implementation of the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) Servlet 1.1 specification. JSSR 289 introduces new application router functionality that lets developers more quickly build services combining IP-based networks and Java/Web applications. The new app server is one of the industry’s first to support the new SIP capabilities.