Known as "backplane," the modularization technology would make available separate from the application server functions such as Web services, JMS (Java Message Service) support and JDBC pooling, said Gary McBride, BEA senior product marketing manager. Speaking at the BEA Dev2DevDays2006 technical event, McBride noted the technology is in the conceptual stage. He said he was unaware if backplane would be featured in the planned next major release of the application server, WebLogic Server 10.

Currently, the application server presents an all-or-nothing scenario pertaining to its services, McBride said. "It's a pretty hefty footprint," he said. The backplane effort would provide flexibility in deploying WebLogic services, he said.

McBride did not know if BEA would make its services available for use with other companies' application servers but cited open source frameworks as one deployment option. Services could be mixed and matched in a variety of platforms.

Also at the event, BEA officials said the company within a few days would release a module enabling the open source Apache Tomcat  Web container to be administered via BEA's own WebLogic Server 9.0 console framework.

The module, referred to as WebLogic Console for Tomcat Server, will provide improved administration for Tomcat, McBride said. It requires that users already have WebLogic Server.