Save Earth from IBM Websphere

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Vijay - 23 Jul 2005 10:38 GMT

Hi,

We, as java developers, can do at least one good in our life by
recommending to our customers not to use Websphere. It is an infinite
trap by IBM to extort money out of ignorant customers in return of
providing the worst application server ever built.
Have you ever benefited from their huge site which doesn't provide
anything useful except obvious crap.
Have you ever seen an exception which tells anything useful.
The EJB clients which work on any other appserver don't work here.
This server is nothing less than an operating system which starts
excess of 20 processes where just a single JVM could suffice and guzzle
gigabytes of RAM instantaneously.

My huble request to java community - please shun websphere. Look and
any other application server and see how beautifully they all work.

Thanks,
Vijay

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Raymond DeCampo - 23 Jul 2005 13:03 GMT

[snip]

> This server is nothing less than an operating system which starts
> excess of 20 processes where just a single JVM could suffice and guzzle
> gigabytes of RAM instantaneously.

That's interesting actually. I have had a client upset that the fact
that the app server used only one JVM and the memory limit of the JVM on
Windows conspired to leave gigabytes of RAM on the table, as it were.

I have had no experience with WebSphere however.

Ray

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XML is the programmer's duct tape.

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Wibble - 23 Jul 2005 19:10 GMT

> Hi,
>
[quoted text clipped - 15 lines]
> Thanks,
> Vijay

I have similar feelings about Weblogic. Do any app servers not suck?
JBoss is at least free, but becomes a bit opaque when you do harder
stuff like clustering.

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Alex Buell - 23 Jul 2005 19:53 GMT

>> We, as java developers, can do at least one good in our life by
>> recommending to our customers not to use Websphere. It is an
[quoted text clipped - 10 lines]
>> My huble request to java community - please shun websphere. Look and
>> any other application server and see how beautifully they all work.

> I have similar feelings about Weblogic. Do any app servers not suck?
> JBoss is at least free, but becomes a bit opaque when you do harder
> stuff like clustering.

I've worked with WebSphere. One of its biggest problems is the lack of
documentation to get anything worthwhile done.

If it was up to me, I'd use Sun's application server instead.

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http://www.munted.org.uk

Bugger me bollocks!

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Wibble - 24 Jul 2005 03:20 GMT

>>> We, as java developers, can do at least one good in our life by
>>> recommending to our customers not to use Websphere. It is an
[quoted text clipped - 19 lines]
>
> If it was up to me, I'd use Sun's application server instead.

I think nobody, ever, anywhere ever used suns app server for anything
real. Anyone here?

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Aquila Deus - 24 Jul 2005 09:15 GMT

> >>> We, as java developers, can do at least one good in our life by
> >>> recommending to our customers not to use Websphere. It is an
[quoted text clipped - 22 lines]
> I think nobody, ever, anywhere ever used suns app server for anything
> real. Anyone here?

so the conclusion is that all of the big three app server are not good,
and the last one, Sun's, is just not used in any real place :-)

that sounds very terrible.... hmmmmm.. maybe I should try CCM instead?

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"." - 25 Jul 2005 18:20 GMT

> > >>> We, as java developers, can do at least one good in our life by
> > >>> recommending to our customers not to use Websphere. It is an
[quoted text clipped - 27 lines]
>
> that sounds very terrible.... hmmmmm.. maybe I should try CCM instead?

I've not seen anyone using Sun's app server in a production environment
but there are a number of people who use it to learn and do some
development.

I have to agree with the original poster about error messages from
WebSphere. Whatever the error message indicates there is an 80% chance
that it is something else. Same thing for WebLogic. The error message tend
to be less than helpful.

At first I would have ranked these app servers low. The truth of the
matter is that they are very powerful and easy to use once you get them
going. There is just a very high learning curve at the start for these and
others (Oracle's app server for example).

I work with a variety of application servers (JBoss, Tomcat, Oracle,
WebSphere, WebLogic, etc.). Tomcat and JBoss were child's play to learn
but some of the things I can do on WAS 5.1.1ND are impossible to do on
Tomcat or JBoss. Specifically, I have apps I conduct stress testing on. I
know where my app breaks with WAS 5.1.1ND but I find that Tomcat and JBoss
fail before the app fails. These servers just cannot handle the load that
WAS 5.1.1ND can; this is on the same hardware.

I think with most computer software there are two extremes. You get
something easy to use from day one but soon find its easy of use becomes a
limiting factor once you pass the intermediate stage. Otherwise you get
something very difficult to use with often days or weeks of errors and
problems but once you get past the initial learning curve you find it is
limitless.

I liked WebLogic because it seems to have struck a balance. It was not the
easiest to use but it was not the hardest. Version 8.1 was even easier to
use than 7.0 or 6.1 (just started looking at 9.0). I found the
documentation to be VERY helpful but it took me a while to collect a good
set of PDFs from the BEA web site. I'm still wading through RedBooks from
IBM on WebSphere. I'm also finding that WebLogic does not have the same
limitations as the easier to learn app servers.

I know some of our customers find WebLogic limiting so they have moved to
WebSphere. They must endure the steep learning curve in order to get the
performance that WebSphere seems to be able to offer them.

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Vijay - 25 Jul 2005 19:59 GMT

Hi All,

I have tried to debug on websphere and it turns dead slow in debug
mode. Of course in production mode, this may mean nothing, but think of
the life of developers. I don't know of any application server, be it
jboss/weblogic/webas/orion/oracle which has any kind of slowdown
because of debug mode. This kills :(.

I disagree that weblogic error messages and exceptions are not useful.
I have found that in weblogic, the error messages provide so much
information that the developer can go straight to the right file and
fix the error.

I recently turned on the option of "Precompile JSPs" on a web
application which has hundreds of JSPs. The error that websphere spewed
out keeps haunting me in my dreams. I checked every log and nowhere it
said more than this that There was some error in precompiling JSPs. How
is the poor developer supposed to know which JSP out of 100s of them is
in error.

Look at the fixpacks they roll out. If you want the next version
fixpack, you've gotta roll back all the earlier ones - now this could
only mean that they're trying to extort money in the name of
maintainance.

I have huge applications which must be supported on all the 5 major
application servers and I know what hell developers go thru when they
want the same application to work on websphere as well. Cross EAR ejb
references can't work without stuffing the client with stubs that
websphere generates.... I look upon this requirement as nothing less
than the VOILATION of J2EE specification.

If you are trying to add a JMS Queue to your resources, then you have
to follow 4 steps, whereas no other server requires more than two
steps. Why is an extra ListenerPort needed?

I very strongly believe that IBM is deriving 90% business out of
support and maintainance because they've imposed crap products onto the
poor customers and these products can never be operated w/o support
from IBM which spawns an infinite web of fixpacks and fixes.

Thanks and Regards,
Vijay

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"." - 25 Jul 2005 21:49 GMT

> Hi All,

Hi,

Not sure if there is something wrong on your end but I saw your message
posted twice. Just thought you should know.

> I have tried to debug on websphere and it turns dead slow in debug
> mode. Of course in production mode, this may mean nothing, but think of
> the life of developers. I don't know of any application server, be it
> jboss/weblogic/webas/orion/oracle which has any kind of slowdown
> because of debug mode. This kills :(.

What do you have turned on? WebSphere is highly configurable. There is a
LOT of information you can get out of it. If you have certain things
turned on (or certain things turned off) it can make a huge difference. If
you have everything turned on for debug then I would expect a significant
drop in performance. I'd never do that for interactive debugging. I'd do
that if I was running a grinder script and recording the system with
something like PerformaSure.

You are correct that the other app servers do not have this sort of slow
down but then they don't collect as much data as WebSphere does.

Bottom line, you have to learn about configuring debug mode and tweaking
the system for what you want. Turn down (or off) the level of information
you want. For example, what do you have the validation policy set to for
debug mode (Troubleshooting-->Configuration Problems on the web console)?
Also, look in Troubleshooting-->Logs and Trace on the web console. I have
46 groups in there. If you switch to debug mode using a script it could be
using wsadmin to change all those settings to be full on. That would
definitely slow your system down.

> I disagree that weblogic error messages and exceptions are not useful.
> I have found that in weblogic, the error messages provide so much
> information that the developer can go straight to the right file and
> fix the error.

My experience has been that 99% of the time things work fine but that 1%
of the time thing don't work, the error messages are really intuitive. I
have found that they tend to have an error number associated with them and
if I google the error number and "WebLogic" I can find the answer on
dev2dev.

> I recently turned on the option of "Precompile JSPs" on a web
> application which has hundreds of JSPs. The error that websphere spewed
> out keeps haunting me in my dreams. I checked every log and nowhere it
> said more than this that There was some error in precompiling JSPs. How
> is the poor developer supposed to know which JSP out of 100s of them is
> in error.

I agree with you completely. I would only use WebSphere because it does
what I need and no other server does. Typically this is an overall
performance issue situation.

With WebSphere my situation tend to be that 80% of the time things work
okay but the 20% of the time I have trouble the error messages are
pointless and even searching google or www.ibm.com does not help (actually
I tend to seach publib.boulder.ibm.com)

> Look at the fixpacks they roll out. If you want the next version
> fixpack, you've gotta roll back all the earlier ones - now this could
> only mean that they're trying to extort money in the name of
> maintainance.

This I don't know about. We have a group at my site who manages fixpacks
and upgrades for us.

> I have huge applications which must be supported on all the 5 major
> application servers and I know what hell developers go thru when they
> want the same application to work on websphere as well. Cross EAR ejb
> references can't work without stuffing the client with stubs that
> websphere generates.... I look upon this requirement as nothing less
> than the VOILATION of J2EE specification.

Some definite issues with WebSphere. Most the big companies realize that
you want to have some hook to make it difficult for the customer to switch
to the competition. WebSphere does this a lot but for the most part I find
if I develop an app on WebSphere and tweak it so it keeps running on
WebSphere and on other servers it goes easier than writing an app on say
JBoss and then trying to get it to run on WebSphere.

> If you are trying to add a JMS Queue to your resources, then you have
> to follow 4 steps, whereas no other server requires more than two
> steps. Why is an extra ListenerPort needed?

Are you using WAS 6.0? I've seen stuff in WAS 6.0 that I haven't figure
out why it is there. I do know from experience that there is usually a
good reason. It might be a reason that adds no benefit for you but
geenrally IBM doesn't do things to mess with you; they do things to
benefit their bigger customers.

> I very strongly believe that IBM is deriving 90% business out of
> support and maintainance because they've imposed crap products onto the
> poor customers and these products can never be operated w/o support
> from IBM which spawns an infinite web of fixpacks and fixes.

Maybe. I always saw it as they are following the Microsoft model. Don't
wait for the thing to be fully tested. Ship it when you think it is good
and then test it while the customer is installing it. By the time the
customer finds any bugs IBM will have, hopefully, found the bug and fixed
it. This way they get to market before the competition. From a development
point of view this sucks. From a business point of view it works.

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Vijay - 25 Jul 2005 20:13 GMT

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richardsosborn@gmail.com - 17 Aug 2005 20:35 GMT

I've worked with Network Solutions, Department of Housing and Urban
Development and the FCC. They all used Sun ONE. I think it's gaining
ground with federal rosters.

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