After setting up the PlatformContext, an application starts the platform by using the org.eclipse.birt.core.framework.Platform class. This class acts as a wrapper around the Eclipse OSGILauncher class and provides the method, startup( ), to start the platform. Calling this synchronized static method uses substantial system resources, so an application should call this method only once. If the report engine is deployed in a web application, call Platform
.startup( ) in the servlet’s init( ) method or in the first request that uses the platform. To achieve this behavior, wrap the platform start-up code in a singleton, as shown in Listing 12‑2. When an application finishes using the platform, call Platform.shutdown( ). If you use the example Web Viewer or deploy the report engine in an Eclipse-based project such as an Rich Client Platform (RCP) application, do not start up or shut down the platform, because these applications control the OSGi start-up and shutdown.