JBoss success

[jdbrown]

As an ISV, we have put our software into production for a client using JBoss. We started with JBoss 3.0.0 and are now running on 3.0.4. The system has both Swing and web clients (www.enstrom.com) using the JBoss EJBs and the web is running on the included Jetty. In production now for 3+ months and everything is running great.

Nothing is perfect, but when we have had a problem, we have worked with a support person in JBoss Group and have had answers usually the same day or next. We are very happy and more importantly the client is pleased. This is a conversion/redesign from a Websphere environment and we have to laugh at the increase in performance, reliablity, and support we have gotten from JBoss.

Keep up the great job!!

Jeff Brown

[ben.sabrin]

We went from WAS 3.0. Port took about 6 months, but was combined with a major re-write / redesign.

We are running on Windows 2000 servers - the same platform and exact servers we used for WAS.

We have clustered and stand-alone environments depending upon our client. The clustered envorinmnets with a web application also use a seperate load balancing device to maintain state to a specific sever since we did not propogate the httpsession data across the cluster. That decison was made with JBoss 3.0 - not sure if we would do the same now with 3.2.1 because httpsession propagting may be much better.

Using JBoss 3.2.1 at this time.

New code was developed using Eclipse tool and used a JBoss plugin to allow to debug and test on the workstatoin within Eclipse. We use an ANT plugin to Eclipse for code deployment.

Eclipse allows us to use and JDK 1.3+ with JBoss and we can support 1.3 at the same time we devlop for new clients in 1.4. This was always a problem using WAS and VisualAge for us as well - as you pointed out.

testing is done on the workstation. QA is done on a development server and then moved to a production server. IN cases of clustered clients we test on 2 dev servers at the same time.

[jferguson]

Hey guys..

I'm planning to setup a web-based app for a client of mine on a single ISP based server (they needed a dedicated server). What concerns me is that when I load my local machine (900MHz Athlon) with Tomcat and a Struts-based app. Things work ok.. but adding JBOSS seems to push the limits considerably. So I'm worried about deployment on the web-server. I'd like to use JBoss here mostly for JBossMQ but pushing the backend into Session beans is also tempting.

Can you give me any indication of your deployment experiences? Issues with load etc.? And should I not really consider this approach and go with a distributed system?

Cheers,
Jon

[jpbrown]

You mention WebSphere. What version of WebSphere did you migrate from? What kind of obstacles did you run into during this port? How long did it take? What hardware and OS did you choose? Are you running clustered or stand alone? What technique do you use for new code deployment and how many "test/QA/Staging" environments does it pass through before it reaches final production?

I work in a WebSphere 4.0.x shop and our greatest challenge is providing an adequate development environment for initial code development on the developer's work station. Our second greatest challenge is that WebSphere has not introduced the 1.4 JDK in the 4.0 version. To get this currently, you need to go to 5.0. However, they reworked their TCL interface in 5.0 so all my automated deployment scripts need major rework. So far, IBM is not budging on making the new TCL backward compatible. This means that there may be an opening for an alternative solution. So, I'm interested in your experience of the port.

[martyu]

jpbrown, what WAS hardware/OS environment are you working in? I've been trying to use Jboss on iSeries and zSeries. iSeries was relatively straightforward but zSeries has so far been unsuccessful.

I am looking for anyone who has worked with Jboss in an OS/390 or z/OS environment. There must not be many, judging by the (lack of) responses I've received to my posts on these forums.

Thanks,
-Marty

[jpbrown]

Marty,

I'm running WAS on Sun V880 and 280R servers with Solaris 8. We are just beginning to explore WAS running under Linux on a z/OS platform with zVM. While I'm still in a WAS shop, we are looking at a need to distribute servers to a variety of locations, which begs for a lower cost solution than WAS (perhaps JBoss on Linux).

Sorry I can't be of any help with the OS/390 or z/OS, but if we get there in the near future, I'll let you know what we find out.

[martyu]

Thanks, jpbrown. We are also an ISV with a situation similar to yours.

We considered the z/OS Linux combo but our marketing folks were not interested, so we did not get a chance to try it.

I have made some progress on the z/OS USS front, and it is looking promising at the moment.

[jdbrown]

We went from WAS 3.0. Port took about 6 months, but was combined with a major re-write / redesign.

We are running on Windows 2000 servers - the same platform and exact servers we used for WAS.

We have clustered and stand-alone environments depending upon our client. The clustered envorinmnets with a web application also use a seperate load balancing device to maintain state to a specific sever since we did not propogate the httpsession data across the cluster. That decison was made with JBoss 3.0 - not sure if we would do the same now with 3.2.1 because httpsession propagting may be much better.

Using JBoss 3.2.1 at this time.

New code was developed using Eclipse tool and used a JBoss plugin to allow to debug and test on the workstatoin within Eclipse. We use an ANT plugin to Eclipse for code deployment.

Eclipse allows us to use and JDK 1.3+ with JBoss and we can support 1.3 at the same time we devlop for new clients in 1.4. This was always a problem using WAS and VisualAge for us as well - as you pointed out.

testing is done on the workstation. QA is done on a development server and then moved to a production server. IN cases of clustered clients we test on 2 dev servers at the same time.