WebLogic Domain Organization

Question

Im working with a client that has its own WebLogic (version 11g) domains, organized in terms of use - so one for production, one for testing, one for developers and all applications must have a common domain. It has many applications / domain (about 20 in total). I have not seen this before, and I was wondering how widespread it is. I see some disadvantages (for example, you cannot configure the domain level settings in accordance with a suitable application), but they cannot think of many (any) advantages. So, two questions: 1. How common is this? 2. What are the pros and cons of this as an approach?

Answer 1

In my experience, this is not often. In all the places where I worked, several domains are used (for each application and for each environment), and this gives you finer control:

• Different applications use different resources.
  • APP1 may need a JMS server while APP2 does not
• You can configure domains in different ways.
  • APP1 may not have the same needs as APP2
• Applications are isolated
  • A heavy request for APP1 will not affect APP2
  • The inclusion of APP1 in production will never affect APP2
  • If I need to restart APP1 cluster, APP2 service will not be interrupted
• Troubleshooting, log analysis easier
• etc.

The only single-domain approach I can think of is simplified maintenance. For non-critical applications, this may work. But I would not be happy with that.