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Why people pay for App server's licenses?
At 1:48 PM on Sep 20, 2005, Natali Babich wrote:
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So why Fortune 500 companies pay for super expensive app server's licenses and purchase WebLogic or Websphere? Are they just plain stupid or there is something else that it's not obvious for a regular J2EE developer?
35 replies so far (
Post your own)
Re: Why people pay for App server's licenses?
In a word: support. If your job depends on your application being delivered on time and your business depends on your application being available, you're not going to trust that if you find a bug someone on the mailing list will be happy to fix it for you and send you a patch likety split.
It's not just bug fixes though, can't get your app server to cluster across your 4 RHEL boxes and need to have it installed by the end of the week? Are the guys from the mailing list going to pour through trace logs to help you figure it out?
Honestly, I don't understand why people don't understand this. I use open-source containers all the time, in fact Javacrawl.com runs happily on Tomcat. That doesn't mean I'm going to trust it for my company's clients who have thousands of employees relying on the system we manage for them.
Javacrawl.com
Re: Why people pay for App server's licenses?
I am project owner of Blandware AtLeap (https://atleap.dev.java.net). It is free java framework + CMS. Developing deployment scripts and testing AtLeap under 10 different application servers I drew some conclusions: not all open source and commercial AS are good. E.g. IBM Websphere6 has given me more problems than other AS (see my weblog http://www.jroller.com/page/agrebnev?entry=resin_websphere_jetty_fails_jsp2). I found several serious bugs in Websphere and I could not find the place where to submit them.On the other hand if I will choose web hosting on cluster I prefer ResinPro to Tomcat. Big commercial products usually give more stability and performance under pressure. Use them if you have money and your server will have big attendance.
Summing up I can advise: use WebLogic (commercial) or JBoss (free) if you need EJB and use ResinPro (commercial) or Tomcat (free) if you do not need EJB. (I do not like EJB implementation in Resin).
Andrey Grebnev
http://www.jroller.com/page/agrebnev
Re: Why people pay for App server's licenses?
I find that pretty funny really. It's an illusion imo. For example, I've had plenty of experience with WebLogic support and frankly it's horrible. You can get better support from a Tomcat or JBoss forum than you can ever get from BEA. In fact, on three separate occasions the only way I could get them to acknowledge a problem and get past the first support tier was via escalation. And if you're company is too small, you can forget about it altogether. It's a fucking joke.Now, if you want to say that they have certain features that the free ones don't, you might be right. But, with BEA at least, support is a joke and you will get much better help from open source options. Sad but true.
Re: Why people pay for App server's licenses?
You may find it a joke, but few companies are run by developers who have the knowledge to say that free product X is better than commercial product Y, and fix the bugs in X if an advertised feature doesn't work (or stops working).At the end of the day most companies are looking to shift the risk. If company A buys a commercial product they can bring the weight of the law down on the vendor if it doesn't do what it says on the tin. If you take open source software you'll get told "You didn't pay anything, so don't expect anything".
I can give you a couple of examples of open source products which have essentially abandoned users who didn't want to upgrade their software for one reason or another;
* ClamAV shutting off updates for people who didn't updated their systems in a way that the developers decided they wanted it done without contacting users (http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?forum_id=420492).
* The number of unfixed bugs in prior releases of Tomcat (http://www.javalobby.com/java/forums/m91824303.html)
With commercial software you have the safety zone of "we bought the product for feature X, therefore if feature X doesn't work we can sue them". In open source your stuck with "We trusted open source for feature X, it doesn't work, we don't employ developers who are familiar with the source for the open source system... nuts.. we're stuffed".
Re: Why people pay for App server's licenses?
I can't speak to BEA's support but I have worked with both IBM & Oracle support and this has not been my experience. Not that these companies have perfect support, but ultimately someone is responsible. If you know how to work the system, you can usually get what you want. 99% of the time it's usually something someone else has run into and they can give you an already developed patch or tell you to upgrade to version x.y.z.
Forums and mailing lists are good for getting general questions answered, but when the question is why doesn't my server/application work, that's when being able to call a support desk is vital.
Javacrawl.com
Re: Why people pay for App server's licenses?
> I drew some conclusions: not all open source and> commercial AS are good. E.g. IBM Websphere6 has given
> me more problems than other AS (see my weblog
> http://www.jroller.com/page/agrebnev?entry=resin_websp
> here_jetty_fails_jsp2). I found several serious bugs
> in Websphere and I could not find the place where to
> submit them.
You're kidding right? http://www-306.ibm.com/software/websphere/support/probsub.html
At the very least you could use the phone and talk to IBM support and ask them how to proceed. They may have had a patch or a workaround.
Application server software tends to get beat on quite heavily by commercial customers who are quick to submit bug reports, especially if it's a production problem. Sometimes the only way to get the fix quickly is via support as the bugfixes rollups only happen every 3 months or so.
As for JBoss, the company makes it's money on support so I don't understand the previous post.
And last how pathetic has Javalobby become when a main thread for the day is `Why people pay for App server's licenses?` complete with /. view of the software world! Free good, commercial bad.
Re: Why people pay for App server's licenses?
The commercial App Servers do have advantages. Especially in the area of system management (for example config session management, web console, auto instance deployments), performance and platform support (jrockit) or integration with external systems (directories, caches, edge filters, ...).Gruss
Bernd
Ease of Use
Another piece of the pie...Have you tried to use JBoss? It may be a flamen good product, and more capable than some commercial app servers but it is hard to setup outside of the standard config. Really hard.
I know, once you know how, it's like riding a bicycle and it's probobly worth the investment of time.
But when you compare it with containers such as OC4J (and Orion (which has since gone down the crapper since it's developers decided that updates were overrated)), you will see that to run the app server in any other way than the default config, is painful.
How else are JBoss meant to make money off support? By making the product super easy to use?
Re: Why people pay for App server's licenses?
Where I used to work, we were seriously looking into moving from JBoss to either Weblogic or Sun SJSAS server. The reasons were first, documentation and second, the difficulty in configuring JBoss.On the first point, we ran into some problems with an application we were building using JBoss. When we went looking for documentation and help, we didn't find any. We posted in the forums and looked on the website and there simply was not enough documentation. Most of the documentation for JBoss is aimed at developers. People who may want to extend or plug into the app server. Contrast this with the several 100 megs of documentation you get when you download Weblogic. JBoss may be a smaller download, but I would rather get the docs that I get with Weblogic.
As for the latter point, agree with what someone else said: JBoss is horrible to configure for anything but a basic install. Everything is done through xml files spread over different directories and using different methods of deployment. Some you can include in the ear file, others have to be in place before you deploy your ear file. Contrast this with the admin consoles that you get in a product like Sun's SJSAS or Bea's Weblogic. You have one central location through which you can control the entire server. Personally, I will take this any day over JBoss' plethora of xml files. I believe the correct term is "xml hell".
http://www.fuzzylizard.com
Re: Why people pay for App server's licenses?
> At the end of the day most companies are looking to> shift the risk. If company A buys a commercial
> product they can bring the weight of the law down on
> the vendor if it doesn't do what it says on the tin.
> If you take open source software you'll get told "You
> didn't pay anything, so don't expect anything".
>
Mmm, have you looked at the license agreement of any commercial software lately?
"This product is not guaranteed to do anything useful at all, whatever the marketing led you to believe. Above all, it may not be safe to use in any circumstances where the life of any living creature may be put at risk. In short, nobody accepts any responsibility whatsoever for this product, whatever happens"
...or something to that effect.
Some believe they get some protection, a cozy blanket. For the most part I think it may just be a way to shift the blame "it's not my fault, it's this stinking company that won't accept responsibility for their product..."
Currently engaged in Weffo web architecture outline and the Flying Saucer xhtml and xml+css renderer
Re: Why people pay for App server's licenses?
Ahhh.. The joys I have of living in a country where contracts (such as licenses) can't negate your consumer rights which are protected by law.Let me guess, you're based in the US by any chance?
Re: Why people pay for App server's licenses?
> Ahhh.. The joys I have of living in a country where> contracts (such as licenses) can't negate your
> consumer rights which are protected by law.
>
> Let me guess, you're based in the US by any chance?
No, but I am guessing that it might be a battle to get my "legal right". I may be wrong, though...
On the other hand, even the EU is not capable of stopping Microsoft from delaying court decisions, so maybe the richest always wins a court battle?
Anyway, I will concede that I think there may be reasons to pay for products, and as others have already illustrated here, you will still pay for the "free" products, just in different ways. But I still disagree that it is in any way more "secure" to go with commercial products in general.
Currently engaged in Weffo web architecture outline and the Flying Saucer xhtml and xml+css renderer
Re: Why people pay for App server's licenses?
> You're kidding right?> At the very least you could use the phone and talk to
> IBM support and ask them how to proceed. They may
> have had a patch or a workaround.
Although I wouldn't beat up on IBM specifically, I must concur with the previous poster, in that I think that commercial appserver licenses are generally a waste. I've now seen close to US20m dollars spent on expensive appserver licenses from a variety of vendors, in 3 large projects. I've even been responsible for recommending at least some of the licenses be purchased
Don't even get me started on commercial support! IBM wasn't too bad, but Borland was *absolutely* and resolutely the worst company for tech support we ever worked with for both JBuilder and appserver support. I shudder to think of the pain that this caused me, trying to find technical workarounds.
Andrew
Re: Why people pay for App server's licenses?
Based on this discussion, I can see that small open source products (Struts, Hibernate, Spring) are well documented and robust, while heavy weights (JBoss) are not mature just yet.I've started a series of articles from the name of a gas station owner/java programmer. In my recent article, I discuss the open source movement with Bernard Golden ( see http://java.sys-con.com/read/124664.htm).
Regards,
Yakov Fain
http://www.weekendwithexperts.com