Databases Reference
In-Depth Information
compared to the OHS and the EPG. In my experience, the OHS is far and away the most popular method
of deploying APEX applications with the EPG trailing way behind, and the Listener currently behind the
EPG. However, from what I have seen, it is the case that the APEX Listener is being much more actively
developed by Oracle than the OHS (and certainly the EPG). If we factor in that the APEX Listener also
provides much tighter integration with APEX itself, I can certainly see the day when the APEX Listener
approaches, if not exceeds, the usage of the OHS.
You can currently download the APEX Listener from
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/developer-tools/apex-listener/overview/index.html
One of the first decisions you will need to make is how you want to deploy the APEX Listener. Will
you deploy via Web Logic Server, via Oracle Glassfish, via OC4J, or go for a stand-alone deployment?
Decisions, decisions . . . which one is right? Well, obviously there's no right answer here and I can't really
advise which one is best for your environment. The only advice I can give is that if you are currently
using one of WLS, Glassfish, or OC4J, then it probably makes the most sense to deploy into the server
that you already have up and running. If you have none of those currently running, then you will have to
pick the one you feel most comfortable with—or you could go for a completely stand-alone deployment.
Stand-Alone Installation
To show how easy it is to get up and running with the APEX Listener, I want to show you the stand-alone
installation. In stand-alone mode you get slightly less control over manageability, since you do not have
a full application server behind you, but it is a very quick way to get up and running, which might be
appropriate for development or demo environment, where you do not necessarily need the full degree of
control gained by installing WLS or Glassfish.
The first thing you need to do is download the APEX Listener, which you can download from
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/developer-tools/apex-listener/downloads/index.html
[oracle@ae1 listener]$ ls -al
total 10448
drwxr-xr-x 2 oracle dba 4096 Mar 3 12:38 .
drwx------ 6 oracle oracle 4096 Mar 3 12:38 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 oracle dba 10671063 Mar 3 12:38 apex listener.1.1.0.60.10.38.zip
[oracle@ae1 listener]$ du -sh apex listener.1.1.0.60.10.38.zip
11M apex listener.1.1.0.60.10.38.zip
You can see that the download is actually quite small—only 11MB, compared with the (hundreds of
MBs) OHS. When you unzip the zip file, you will find that some of that 11MB is actually documentation.
This is one of the main reasons I love the APEX Listener: it is extremely compact.
[oracle@ae1 listener]$ ls -al
total 20072
drwxr-xr-x 4 oracle dba 4096 Mar 3 12:40 .
drwx------ 6 oracle oracle 4096 Mar 3 12:38 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 oracle dba 2153 Mar 1 10:44 apex-config.xml
-rw-r--r-- 1 oracle dba 10671063 Mar 3 12:38 apex listener.1.1.0.60.10.38.zip
-rw-r--r-- 1 oracle dba 9789612 Mar 1 10:44 apex.war
drwxr-xr-x 5 oracle dba 4096 Mar 1 10:44 docs
-rw-r--r-- 1 oracle dba 2846 Mar 1 10:44 index.htm
drwxr-xr-x 4 oracle dba 4096 Mar 1 10:44 javadoc
-rw-r--r-- 1 oracle dba 24890 Mar 1 10:44 license.html
