1.2 Oracle Application Server Forms Services

As part of Oracle Application Server, Oracle Application Server Forms Services is a new generation of tools that enable you to deploy new and existing Forms Services applications on the World Wide Web.

Forms Services is a comprehensive application framework optimized to deploy Forms applications in a multi-tiered environment. It takes advantage of the ease and accessibility of the Web and elevates it from a static information-publishing mechanism to an environment capable of supporting complex applications.

1.2.1 What's New in Forms Services

Much of the functionality that was handled by the Web server in Forms 6i has been assumed by components that are delivered with Oracle Application Server. For example, load balancing, security, scalability, HTTP/S communication handling, and deployment of Java servlets are all performed by various components delivered with OracleAS, such as the Oracle HTTP Server and Oracle Application Server Containers for J2EE (OC4J).

The Forms Services component of OracleAS handles all processing that is specific to Forms Developer applications, such as running the business logic defined in the Forms Developer application and providing the connection to the Oracle Database. A Java applet provides the client user interface.

New features for Forms Services include:

Runtime Pooling (see Section 10.1.2, "Forms Services Web Runtime Pooling")
Improved Enterprise Manager Web interface (see Section 5.4, "Enabling OracleAS Single Sign-On for an Application"
OracleAS Single Sign-On improvements (see Chapter 5, "Using Forms Services with Oracle Application Server Single Sign-On")
Improved Integration with Enterprise Manager for easier administration and manageability (see Chapter 8, "Tracing and Diagnostics" and Chapter 9, "Configuring End User Monitoring")
Tracing and logging improvements (see Chapter 10, "Performance Tuning Considerations")
Java Virtual Machine (JVM) Pooling (see Chapter 7, "JVM Pooling")