Programming Model Support and Application Server Value

Ok, so I don't want this to be specifically a 'product' blog, but this week is Oracle's "OpenWorld" conference.

To recognize the occasion my employer (IBM) has launched a Web site comparing value vs. cost between WebSphere Application Server and WebLogic Server (Oracle's app server). The official web site has all the facts and figures at http://www-01.ibm.com/software/websphere/whypaymore/.

Needless to say, in these economic times the license cost aspect of the middleware decision is an important one to consider. I'm sure there are a lot of legacy BEA customers feeling like they just got stuck with an adjustable rate mortgage during the housing crisis (the cost going up every year).

List price comparisons aside, the most interesting aspect to me (per the subject of this blog) is really about the programming model innovation comparison. As the Product Manager for WAS feature packs, I've been focused on delivering new programming models over the last several years. Feature Packs allow WebSphere customers to optionally take in new technologies and apply them to their existing installs (no full version migration necessary). This approach provides tremendous value for customers who desire stability while still delivering the new application development technologies that enable developers to be more productive and address new business requirements.

Since 2007 we've released WAS v7 feature packs for Web 2.0, Service Component Architecture (SCA), and Communications Enabled Applications. We currently have a beta for an additional feature pack around the latest XML programming model standards (xslt2, xpath2, xquery). You can see all of these technologies blogged about and discussed in depth at the WebSphere Community blog. http://webspherecommunity.blogspot.com/

My point here is simple, price is one thing, but when comparing "value" you won't find equivalent support for any of these technologies or feature pack delivery strategy on WebLogic Server.

Welcome!

Just getting started with this whole blogging thing.

I picked the name "SOA Inside" to refer to OSGi technology that I (and many others) feel is going to become extremely important in the next generation of business application development. You could argue that OSGi is already very important to many types of applications already. However, I believe the best is yet to come for the value of OSGi as a "business" applications programming model.

Apache Aries, recently voted into incubation (http://wiki.apache.org/incubator/AriesProposal) as a project to house the OSGi EEG standards, already has committers from the likes of IBM, Progress, and SAP among others. Pretty impressive for a project that's been around for approximately a month now. The list will only continue to grow.

For the uninitiated the OSGi EEG specs essentially take what has been largely an infrastructure programming model in OSGi and expose / customize it to developing business applications. More on this later, but the benefits to developers and operations managers are immense.

Back to why I named the blog... Gartner's Massimo Pezzini used the phrase "SOA Inside" to refer to OSGi. What Massimo is referring to is the fact that OSGi really facilitates / enforces best practices in software design (ie. applications combine reusable services - service oriented). There are many cool things about OSGi and over time I hope to Blog my thoughts and extended out to related technologies like JPA, SCA, others. For now, "welcome" and come again.