Which application server is best?

[Debra123]

I have to recommend an application server for a big
organisation with high hit rate. Please help..
The employees are not very good programmers
and will have to be sent to train for it.
They want good support in case things crash (!!)
and lots of web pages to look at for solutions.

So scalability (clustering?), ease of use, support,
plenty of web info from users (blogs etc), are the big issues
-cost is not so much of a problem.

So its BEA or Resin or Tomcat or Sun or Websphere.
+ any others? Whats the 'tell it as really it is', on these?

Please please advise me, I would be so grateful...
Thanks in advance.

Debra123

 

[Michael Redlich]

I have to recommend an application server for a big
organisation with high hit rate. Please help..
The employees are not very good programmers
and will have to be sent to train for it.
They want good support in case things crash (!!)
and lots of web pages to look at for solutions.

So scalability (clustering?), ease of use, support,
plenty of web info from users (blogs etc), are the big issues
-cost is not so much of a problem.

So its BEA or Resin or Tomcat or Sun or Websphere.
+ any others? Whats the 'tell it as really it is', on these?

Please please advise me, I would be so grateful...
Thanks in advance.

Debra:

Please keep in mind that Tomcat is web server that has a servlet
container for developing applications with Java Servlets/JSPs. You
wouldn't be able to develop an EJB-based application.

I would check out a few of the open source application servers such as
JBoss (http://www.jboss.org/) and Sun's GlassFish
(http://java.sun.com/javaee/glassfish/).

BEA and WebSphere are quite good as well.

I suppose that it depends on what training is available, and what your
developers would feel comfortable using.

I am not familiar with Resin, so I'll have to research this one...

Hope this helps.

Mike.

 

[tom fredriksen]

I have to recommend an application server for a big
organisation with high hit rate. Please help..
The employees are not very good programmers
and will have to be sent to train for it.
They want good support in case things crash (!!)
and lots of web pages to look at for solutions.

So scalability (clustering?), ease of use, support,
plenty of web info from users (blogs etc), are the big issues
-cost is not so much of a problem.

So its BEA or Resin or Tomcat or Sun or Websphere.
+ any others? Whats the 'tell it as really it is', on these?

Please please advise me, I would be so grateful...
Thanks in advance.

For you to be able to advise or recommend anything, you need to
understand the domain technologies your self. Then you need to
understand properly what it is your customer/company wants. At that
point it should be fairly easy to choose the correct technology to use.
Of course, you will have to make some compromises, depending on what the
requirements are and if there is something out there that can fulfill them.

Having said that, we will gladly help you with information so you can
decide. In that case you need to be more specific about what you are
looking for, what it should do and how you you want to solve it. E.g.
are you creating a web site? public or internal?, is it a business
system, does it talk with others systems, in what fashion? etc.

Also what do you mean by "ease of use": web page usability or server
programming and maintenance. What do you mean with "plenty of web info
from users (blogs etc)" are you talking about system documentation and a
lively community for the system or is it what the system is to produce....

/tom

 

[David Segall]

For you to be able to advise or recommend anything, you need to
understand the domain technologies your self. Then you need to
understand properly what it is your customer/company wants. At that
point it should be fairly easy to choose the correct technology to use.
Of course, you will have to make some compromises, depending on what the
requirements are and if there is something out there that can fulfill them.

Having said that, we will gladly help you with information so you can
decide. In that case you need to be more specific about what you are
looking for, what it should do and how you you want to solve it. E.g.
are you creating a web site? public or internal?, is it a business
system, does it talk with others systems, in what fashion? etc.

Also what do you mean by "ease of use": web page usability or server
programming and maintenance. What do you mean with "plenty of web info
from users (blogs etc)" are you talking about system documentation and a
lively community for the system or is it what the system is to produce....

/tom

 

[David Segall]

For you to be able to advise or recommend anything, you need to
understand the domain technologies your self. Then you need to
understand properly what it is your customer/company wants. At that
point it should be fairly easy to choose the correct technology to use.

Do you really mean easy? To keep it simple, could you tell me which
server I should choose if I want to rewrite HP's on-line store
<http://welcome.hp.com/country/us/en/buy/online_shopping.html> using
Java Server Faces? To further simplify the choice you may assume that
I have told you exactly the next five years of access requests.

Of course, I don't expect you to provide the right answer. Just give
me a method of choosing that does not require creating the site and
running a simulation of the load on each server.

 

[tom fredriksen]

Do you really mean easy? To keep it simple, could you tell me which
server I should choose if I want to rewrite HP's on-line store
<http://welcome.hp.com/country/us/en/buy/online_shopping.html> using
Java Server Faces? To further simplify the choice you may assume that
I have told you exactly the next five years of access requests.

Before I could even try to give you an answer I would have to ask why do
you need to use java server faces? Do you actually need to use tomcat or
a stock application server. Would a lightweight framework be better, do
you need to make it an servlet implementation? or could it be based on
something else.

What I mean is that you need to know what you want to accomplish before
you can start selecting technologies. If you know that then its fairly
easy to choose the technology to use. Of course, if its not, then you
need to map out which techologies cover the different requirements and
start reading about them to see which is best suited.
A good place to start is http://www.wikipedia.org it contains a lot of
information about computing techologies.

/tom

 

[David Segall]

Before I could even try to give you an answer I would have to ask why do
you need to use java server faces?

I just thought it would make it easier for you to choose a server for
me. For the purpose of this discussion I will invert the question.
Please specify the application server that is the "best" for any
application that you can define in any way you feel like.

I should confess that my response to your post was partly based on a
general irritation with posters who respond with "you asked the wrong
question" rather than providing an answer.

 

[Roedy Green]

So its BEA or Resin or Tomcat or Sun or Websphere.
+ any others? Whats the 'tell it as really it is', on these?

That is certainly a good set to try out. I would drop TomCat. It is
not in the same league. Websphere is expensive and requires a
wheelbarrow to deliver the hard copy docs. In your shoes I would
focus on Resin pro vs Bea.

 

[tom fredriksen]

I should confess that my response to your post was partly based on a
general irritation with posters who respond with "you asked the wrong
question" rather than providing an answer.

I hate to say it, but many people are not willing to say whatever comes
to mind as quickly as it appears. Take it how you like, but I generally
prefer to understand what the question is before actually trying to
answer it. That includes having the question rephrased if that would
help me produce an answer of any value to the person asking.

/tom

 

[Debra123]

So its Bea or Resin. Tom- are you suffering
from Asbergers?

 

[tom fredriksen]

So its Bea or Resin. Tom- are you suffering
from Asbergers?

Im am not sure whether to take it as a compliment or an insult. So many
to choose from, autism, extremely intelligent or lack of social skills,
late development... hmmm

I'll take it as you choose, more so with other questions...

/tom

 

[richardsosborn]

I would put SunONE on the list. While not as supported, or as
elaborate as Websphere or BEA, with their integrated deployment and
development tools. BEA is my personal favorite. But for the price
it's hard to beat, and strongly used in government spaces.

You've probably tried it on any DMV, IRS or other government sites
you've used. And
100% of the latest J2EE and JDK' releases are supported: for better or
worse.

 

[James McGill]

BEA is my personal favorite.

I've never met anyone who actually used weblogic, who has also used
jboss, who still can express a preference for weblogic.