Partners Put BEA WebLogic Under Linux

BEA Systems Inc. said Monday that it's teaming with Red Hat Inc. and Hewlett-Packard to package and support its WebLogic Application Server under Linux.

Despite the SCO Group's demand for license fees from commercial Linux users, WebLogic under Linux "is our fastest-growing deployment environment," says Olivier Helleboid, executive VP of BEA Systems' products organization. Prior to Linux's growing popularity, WebLogic ran under Windows and versions of Unix.

"We're not delaying any Linux product offering" due to the SCO Group's legal action seeking $1 billion from IBM for its commercial Linux product sales, says Rick Jackson, VP of product marketing.

BEA has staked out a position as a supplier of the Java application server and a Java Virtual Machine, WebLogic JRockit, on the open-source operating system and is seeking partner support to bolster WebLogic-Linux deployments. BEA and Red Hat will preconfigure and optimize combinations of WebLogic Application Server, JRockit, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

"Linux went through its hypewave 18 months ago. Now we want to help customers go through with deployments," in some cases moving Java applications from Unix servers to lower cost Linux/Intel server deployments, says Ali Fenn, director of business development for BEA's Java runtime group.

HP will resell combinations of BEA WebLogic, JRockit, and Red Hat as well. HP will offer the optimized software package on ProLiant servers based on Intel's Xeon processors and on HP Integrity servers built with Itanium 2 processors.

BEA also has worked out agreements with Red Hat and HP to jointly "coordinate on the back end to resolve support issues," Jackson said. In addition, BEA will host a new online Linux Resource Center with developer's tools and deployment information.

The announcement comes on the eve of the LinuxWorld conference in San Francisco, which begins tomorrow and runs through Thursday.