If I wish to store application username/passwords in a database, it is unclear whether I should use the RDBMS Authentication Provider functionality (on the Providers tab in the Security Realm section of the WebLogic console) or the RDBMS Security Store functionality (on the RDBMS security store tab in the Security Realm section of the WebLogic console)
Can someone please explain the difference and when one would use one over the other?
The RDBMS Authentication Provider is useful when you want to create your own user tables with their own schema (or you already have them created and/or in use). The RDBMS Security Store is useful as it provides all the necessary scripts for creating user authentication and authorization tables in your database.
You should be aware that if you choose to go the RDBMS Security Store route that you may want to allow a weblogic admin user to log in to weblogic's console if the database is not accessible e.g. if your database goes down and you want to login to the console to change the database connection information. You can accomplish this by adding an second provider that will be used to authenticate/authorize your weblogic admin user.