What is the difference between the Forms Server and Forms Services?
Forms Services 6i and Forms Server 6i are the same. Forms
Services is the new name for Forms Server within Oracle9i Application
Server.
The Forms Server standalone is not orderable anymore.
What is the difference for Internet Deployment between the Forms Listener and the Forms Listener Servlet?
The Forms Listener is a process running on a specific port on the server
machine. Because the Forms Listener manages
the initial connections from the Forms client, the machine where the Forms
Listener process is running and the port on which the Forms Listener is
listening must be exposed through the firewall for HTTP and HTTPS traffic.
When the connection between the client and the Forms Runtime process is
established, the client and the runtime
process requires that the connection be
persistent. To achieve this persistent connection through firewalls and
proxies Oracle requires
that firewalls and proxies be
HTTP1.1 compliant.
The Forms Listener Servlet is a Java servlet running in a servlet engine.
The Forms Listener Servlet improves upon the functionality of the Forms
Listener. In the Forms Listener architecture the Web server routes the
client requests for the Forms Listener Servlet directly to the servlet
instance. Because the web server acts like the end point for the client,
the other server machines and ports are no longer exposed to
the firewall. No protocol restrictions and
no extra processes to manage!
This solution is the one recommended for deploying Forms on Internet.
Do I still need to download JInitiator on the client to run a Forms application?
JInitiator is a Java Virtual Machine (JVM) that plugs into either Netscape
Communicator or Microsoft Internet Explorer to provide an alternative
JVM to that which those browsers provide.
Depending on the client
platform the browser is running, we are supporting the following JVMs:
- Windows32
- Oracle JInitiator (with Netscape and Internet Explorer)
- Internet Explorer 5.x native JVM
- Macintosh
- Apple MRJ 2.2.3 (with Internet Explorer 5.0)
- Solaris
For more information on the level of certification and possible restrictions,
please refer to the "Client Platform Support" statement of direction
available on OTN ().
What is the difference between the Forms Servlet and the Forms Listener Servlet?
The Forms Servlet is in charge of dynamically generating the HTML page containing the necessary
Forms Client information and is in charge of communicating with the Load Balancer server for the Forms load balancing.
The Forms Listener Servlet is the new architecture for Internet deployment.
The Forms Listener Servlet replaces the Forms Listener functionality when
you deploy over the Internet.
What is the difference between the Forms CGI and the Forms Servlet?
The Forms CGI and the Forms Servlet have the following
similarities:
- Generate the HTML tags needed to start a Forms application according to the client browser
used
- Communicate with the Load Balancer server to determine the
least loaded host and perform load balancing
The differences between the CGI and
the servlet are the following:
- The servlet performs better than the CGI
- The servlet leverages Oracle 9iAS infrastructure (mod_jserv and Apache Jserv)
- The servlet must be run under a servlet enabled application
server such as Oracle 9iAS.
Both deployment methods are supported.
Can I deploy my Forms application over the Internet through firewalls
and proxies?
Yes. With the new standard architecture, the Forms Listener servlet (a
connection from the client to the HTTP Listener) Forms Services supports
a wide range of firewalls and proxy servers. For more information, read
the white paper Oracle Forms Developer Release 6i Patch 6: Forms Listener
Servlet for Deployment of Forms on the Internet available on OTN ().
When will the Forms Listener servlet use HTTP 1.1 requests to the webserver,
and when will it use HTTP 1.0 requests?
The Forms Listener servlet will always make HTTP 1.1 requests if the
webserver and any intervening proxies, support this protocol level. The
servlet will drop down to using HTTP 1.0 if webserver or one of the proxies
can only support that level of the protocol.
How can I manage and monitor Forms Services activity remotely?
Forms Services is integrated with Oracle Enterprise Manager (OEM)
to allow the administration and the monitoring of Forms Listeners, Load
Balancer clients, and Load Balancer
Servers. From the OEM console, you can remotely create, start, stop,
or monitor these processes and even create jobs to restart them automatically
in case of a failure. The Forms Listener Servlet shipped in Oracle 9iAS
v1 does not support this feature. OEM support for Forms Listener Servlet
will be provided in a later release of Oracle 9iAS.
How do I run my
Forms Services applications in several different languages on the same
machine?
When Using the Forms Listener Servlet :
From Forms 6i patch 5 and higher, it is possible to define multiple
aliases for the Forms Listener Servlet in the ZONES.PROPERTIES file.
Each of these aliases can be passed a configuration file defining custom
environment variables for that particular instance of the servlet. In
this way you can set up various aliases for different languages and have
the NLS_LANG set accordingly in each of the configuration files.
Refer to the white paper Oracle9iAS Forms Services: Forms6i Patch
5: Forms Listener Servlet for Deployment of Forms on the Internet
for details on how to set this up.
When Using the Forms Listener:
When you start a Forms Server Listener, the environment in force will
be passed on to any runtime engines that the listener spawns.
Consequently, if you start
a listener with a particular NLS setting in force, all connections to
the port
that the listener is servicing will use that NLS setting.
To configure an application server to run in multiple languages, start
one Forms Listener for each language and have each one listen
on a different port. Then you can create HTML files for each language,
specifying the relevant port.
On Windows NT, when an environment
variable such as NLS_LANG is defined in the registry, it is global to
all applications; however, the registry settings for these variables can
be overridden in a command line shell, using the SET command prior to
invoking a given Forms Listener from the same shell.
To override the values in the registry for individual instances of the
Forms Server Listener, create a batch file for starting the server with
a local version of the NLS_LANG parameter.
For example:
@echo off
REM set up Port 9002 to be the French users' point of entry
set NLS_LANG FRENCH_FRANCE.WE8ISO8859P1
ifsrv60 -listen port=9002 log=c:\logs\french_connection.log
How can I best measure the memory requirements if my application is
on the middle tier?
It is tempting to use operating
system tools such as Task manager
on Windows or ps on UNIX to provide a figure
for memory consumption, based on the amount of memory shown to be consumed
by a single session, and multiplying by the projected population.
However, these utilities give a misleadingly high figure for memory consumption,
as they fail to take into account the extensive sharing of memory that
takes place between concurrent Forms sessions.
The only way to test the scalability of an application is to define a realistic
usage scenario and simulate the activity of concurrent users by playing
back this scenario. When the performance degrades significantly, you have
reached the maximum number of users on the machine configuration.
You can then calculate the memory consumption per user accordingly.
Tools, such as Mercury LoadRunner,
are available to help simulate such user loads.
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