Last Tuesday, IBM launched a wide-ranging series of initiatives to put its WebSphere products into thousands of mid-market organizations. Among those initiatives was WebSphere Application Server (WAS) Express, an entry-level version of WAS Version 5 that iSeries customers have long awaited.
While iSeries customers may consider WAS Express to be the highlight of IBM's announcement, it is really part of a much broader campaign to make IBM's e-business software commonplace among mid-size companies. However, since I know that many of you are eager for the WAS information, let's dispense with the details immediately. Rather than being an exclusive iSeries product, WAS Express will ship on three operating systems: Windows, Linux distributions on Intel servers, and OS/400. The Windows version will ship December 13, while the Linux on Intel and OS/400 versions will ship during January and February of next year. According to my IBM sources, WAS Express for iSeries will initially ship with support for OS/400 V5R2; the release may be available electronically in January, but the CDs will likely ship in February. A WAS Express release for OS/400 V5R1 is also being prepared and will probably ship about 30 days after the V5R2 release.
While I expected that pricing for WAS Express would be aggressive, it turned out to be even better than I anticipated. All versions of WAS Express offer per-user and unlimited license options. The per-user charge is $25 (in increments of 20 users) and applies only to registered users in an intranet environment. Alternatively, you can pay $2,000 per CPU for an unlimited license in any Web-based environment. One of the best things about the unlimited license is that on the iSeries, IBM will offer sub-capacity pricing. Under sub-capacity pricing, customers who deploy logical partitions (LPARs) on their systems will only have to pay the per-CPU charge for those processors that are part of LPARs running WAS Express. For instance, let's say that you have a four-way model 820 running three LPARs and that you deploy WAS Express on a single LPAR that uses 1.7 processors. Since two processors are supporting WAS Express, you'll only pay $4,000 (twice the $2,000 per-CPU charge). As in other sub-capacity plans, IBM rounds up to the nearest full processor.
As expected, WAS Express is not a full-featured version of WAS Version 5. While WAS Express supports Java Server Pages (JSPs) and servlets, it does not offer container services for Enterprise Java Beans (EJBs) and is not a full implementation of the Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) specification. This positions WAS Express as a functional replacement for WAS Standard Edition 3.5 and the Jakarta Tomcat server. By the way, since IBM will be heavily promoting WAS Express to both software vendors and customers, I am anticipating that it will probably freeze any further development efforts for Tomcat.
On the development tools front, WAS Express for iSeries will come packaged with a single-user license for WebSphere Development Studio Client for iSeries (WDSc). The product, which is the follow-on to WebSphere Development Tools for iSeries, consolidates into a single package the traditional workstation and Web tools used by iSeries programmers. These include VisualAge for RPG, CODE, the WebFacing tool, WebSphere Studio Site Developer Advanced (the follow-on tool for both VisualAge for Java and WebSphere Studio), and other tools. In addition, WDSc begins the process of transforming iSeries tools into plug-ins for the Eclipse open-source development workbench.
To really understand WDSc would take another article. Suffice it to say for now that, if you want more than the single-developer WDSc license that comes with WAS Express, you'll be able to purchase additional seats for $2,000 per developer. Alternatively, you can purchase WebSphere Development Studio for iSeries, which contains both WDSc and iSeries host-side tools, and get an unlimited license to WDSc. This will be true no matter what WAS version you use, Express or otherwise.
By the way, in case you're wondering whether WAS Express will be available on iSeries Linux partitions, the current word from my IBM sources is "not for now." Of course, IBM is quietly testing an advanced version of WAS (that is, with EJB support) running on Linux partitions at selected customer sites. This will become available sometime in 2003, though no dates are set in stone yet. IBM also intends to ship WAS for iSeries 5.0 (a full-featured version with EJB and J2EE support) near the end of this year or early next year. As such, iSeries customers will have several WAS options to choose from in the coming months.
As I said at the start of this article, there is much more to IBM's WebSphere strategy than WAS Express. Next week, I'll review IBM's broader strategy for WebSphere in the mid-market and explain why it could lead to some sleepless nights for Microsoft's senior executives.
Lee Kroon is a Senior Industry Analyst for Andrews Consulting Group, a firm that helps mid-sized companies manage business transformation through technology. You can reach him at
More than ever, there is a demand for IT to deliver innovation. Your IBM i has been an essential part of your business operations for years. However, your organization may struggle to maintain the current system and implement new projects. The thousands of customers we've worked with and surveyed state that expectations regarding the digital footprint and vision of the company are not aligned with the current IT environment.
TRY the one package that solves all your document design and printing challenges on all your platforms. Produce bar code labels, electronic forms, ad hoc reports, and RFID tags – without programming! MarkMagic is the only document design and print solution that combines report writing, WYSIWYG label and forms design, and conditional printing in one integrated product. Make sure your data survives when catastrophe hits. Request your trial now! Request Now.
Forms of ransomware has been around for over 30 years, and with more and more organizations suffering attacks each year, it continues to endure. What has made ransomware such a durable threat and what is the best way to combat it? In order to prevent ransomware, organizations must first understand how it works.
Disaster protection is vital to every business. Yet, it often consists of patched together procedures that are prone to error. From automatic backups to data encryption to media management, Robot automates the routine (yet often complex) tasks of iSeries backup and recovery, saving you time and money and making the process safer and more reliable. Automate your backups with the Robot Backup and Recovery Solution. Key features include:
Business users want new applications now. Market and regulatory pressures require faster application updates and delivery into production. Your IBM i developers may be approaching retirement, and you see no sure way to fill their positions with experienced developers. In addition, you may be caught between maintaining your existing applications and the uncertainty of moving to something new.
IT managers hoping to find new IBM i talent are discovering that the pool of experienced RPG programmers and operators or administrators with intimate knowledge of the operating system and the applications that run on it is small. This begs the question: How will you manage the platform that supports such a big part of your business? This guide offers strategies and software suggestions to help you plan IT staffing and resources and smooth the transition after your AS/400 talent retires. Read on to learn:
LATEST COMMENTS
MC Press Online