In recent months, I have had a lot of dealings with middleware administrators, responsible for the management of WebLogic Server and other Fusion Middleware components such as SOA Suite, Oracle Service Bus, WebCenter and UCM. My role is frequently one that allows me to step back a little and observe. These observations made it very clear that not only is middleware administration a challenging task – one that is underestimated in many organizations – it is also one that is frequently made much harder than necessary by actions that developers take or do not take. Developers create the artifacts that administrators will deploy and manage on the middleware infrastructure. These developers can make life easier for the administrators if they adhere to certain best practices in creating and handing over these artifacts. However, out of ignorance, disinterest or lack of time it is unfortunately common for administrators to experience severe frustrations over the work of developers.

I am trying to compile a list of various points of frustration for middleware administrators caused by developer ignorance or carelessness. Below is the list if have compiled so far – with some help from More >