At 08:41 15.01.2001 , you wrote:
>Not to sound like a hipocrat but I believe the J2EE standard calls for a
>pplication server independence flexibility. You must think to yourself what
>makes your application so dependent on the server it is deployed onto.
>Besides the custom deployment descriptors (orion-ejb-jar, weblogic-ejb-jar,
>jboss, and so on) you should architect your system independent of any app
>server dependent features like clustering, fail-over and load balancing. If
>you sit down and outline the layers that are dependent on the underlying
>mechanism, you will be able to isolate and separate your application. Do
>you rememeber that Java is supposed to be independent of its OS?
LOL
>So, coming back to my point: even if Orion does go under, you should be
>able to switch out to another server and modify some deployment descriptors
>with no problem. I have my application running under Weblogic, Orion, and
>Jboss with only the deployment descriptors different.
no shit? seriously, of course, it is possible to deploy simple applications
independently on different J2EE environments and of course one should use
server-dependent features. I don't know what your level of experience and
the complexity of your application is but it doesn't sound like you've been
involved in the development and maintenance of a large number of complex
J2EE projects (and that is not meant as an offense). First of all you
obviously didn't read the cost factor (primary reason not to deploy on WLS
for us). I'll give you some examples of things that one (or more precisely
we) has to consider or do when moving to another server:
1. we have a homegrown code generation software that generates all entity
beans, all deployment files and some more stuff. has to be modified for the
server dependent parts of the config
2. database based web authentication has to be moved/ported to the
mechanisms available for a different J2EE server
3. procedures/scripts for moving from development to production site, CVS
management of sites etc. would all have to be changed according to the new
configuration requirements
4. all people involved would have to learn how to work with the server
5. system administration scripts/procedures (including monitoring) might
have to be changed
6. All http server specific stuff (filters, virtual directories) would have
to be ported to the new http server
7. all tuning aspects not covered by the spec like transaction-timeouts,
datasource-pool configuration etc would have to be migrated
Regarding cheap alternatives there are additional things:
- If you rely on a fast CMP engine JBoss is not an option (yet)
- How fast does jBoss start with about 30 applications deployed (with about
15-30 EJBs each) the integration with TomCat or Jetty is alpha.quality?
I'm not saying that half a year from now things might not be different but
believe me, we've looked into that quite thoroughly.
Of course, it's all doable but add that up for about 30 productive
applications distributed on 3 production systems with more than 200000
lines of orion-specific deployment information add the testing you need
(remember, that stuff is in production now) and then consider than none of
our customers would pay a penny for that because we recommended orion and
then add the fact that we have to take the manpower for that migration from
current projects. now is that a considerable price to pay for moving to a
different server or what? we have architected the apps very carefully to be
as little orion-specific as possible but there are some things that are
simply not covered by any spec (see above for examples). no doubt that this
wouldn't even be doable if we hadn't coded to the specs but it still is
serious and expensive work.
so that java 101 "but isn't it supposed to be WORA" just doesn't cut it in
real life.
hope that clears up the confusion and the scope of the statements in my
earlier mail.
best regards and no offense,
robert
>I hope this helps and triggers some thought.
>
>Thanks,
>Ozzie Gurkan
>
>--- Robert Krueger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> > >
> > >
> > >Of course, this is a little unfair - weblogic hadn't had a new release
> > for
> > >several months, either. They've just had a major release recently, which
> > >makes it seem like they're more active than Orion, when that's not
> > >necessarily the case. It might be, but that's not implied by the
> > situation
> > >at present.
> > >
> > >For the most part, Orion is still very much ahead of the pack, and the
> > >speed is stil EXCELLENT. While I'm very much looking forward to a new
> >
> > doesn't buy you much if it isn't reliable. that's the sad thing. it's
> > true
> > that they are ahead of the pack in a number of fields but if you're stuck
> >
> > with a serious bug without the slightest hint when things will be fixed
> > it's still a KO criterion (germanism?). at the moment we're not switching
> >
> > to an alternative because
> >
> > 1. most of our projects where orion is currently used in production
> > wouldn't allow a switch to WLS budgetwise
> > 2. OSS alternatives are still far from the completeness orion offers (sad
> >
> > but it's the truth), which especially hurts if you have a large number of
> >
> > deployed J2EE applications which we do
> > 3. there is some (not too much) hope left, they have learned their lesson
> >
> > and won't underestimate QA requirements in the future once they come back
> >
> > and start releasing updates again
> >
> > at the moment we settled for living with a number of strange behaviours
> > and
> > awkward workarounds that we simply hope won't break our necks the next
> > day
> > (which is not a good feeling to live with). one lesson I have learned is
> > that there is a substantial risk involved in choosing a brandnew (even
> > standard) technology. I would be more careful next time. Now too much
> > work
> > has gone into the current setup to change it to other alternatives and
> > other products supporting the same standards are simply too expensive.
> >
> > >round of released bug fixes, I'm still waiting for some things to shake
> > >out before I abandon ship.
> >
> > but you have to admit that it's getting harder to hold on to that?
> >
> > my 2 c
> >
> > robert
> >
> > > >
> > > > -----Original Message-----
> > > > From: Santosh Kumar [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> > > > Sent: Monday, January 15, 2001 12:57 AM
> > > > To: Orion-Interest
> > > > Subject: Re: Any news from Orion yet??
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Hi kevin,
> > > > As far as i have known WL5.1 or <, there is no concept of ear
> >
> > > files,
> > > > does 6.0 include
> > > > that. Doesn't the J2EE mandate (I am not sure!) the use of EAR
> > > = WAR + JAR
> > > > + CAR(or JAR)?
> > > > To deploy the JPS1.1.1 on Orion, it is a piece of cake, while
> > deploying on
> > > > WLS, i have to
> > > > unpack the EAR files and dis-integrate them which is contrary to the
> > > essence
> > > > of packaging the ear files,
> > > > Even meddling with the ugly weblogic.properties frustrates one and
> > all. Is
> > > > that true with all WLS users?
> > > >
> > > > Orion is a neat impl of J2EE, is WLS6.0?
> > > >
> > > > Regards,
> > > > Santosh.
> > > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > > From: Kevin Duffey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > > > To: Orion-Interest <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > > > Sent: Monday, January 15, 2001 12:07 PM
> > > > Subject: RE: Any news from Orion yet??
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > > I am not one to advocate another product, but WL6 looks nice. It is
> > easy
> > > > to
> > > > > work with compared to WL5.1. Orion is still the best. JBoss looks
> > very
> > > > > interesting as well.
> > > > >
> > > > > > -----Original Message-----
> > > > > > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > > > > > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Neville
> > > > > > Burnell
> > > > > > Sent: Sunday, January 14, 2001 2:26 PM
> > > > > > To: Orion-Interest
> > > > > > Cc: Orion-Interest
> > > > > > Subject: FW: Any news from Orion yet??
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Yes - pls Orion people, publish some news & update Orion ...
> > > > > >
> > > > > > We are looking to buy at least 3 licences over the next few weeks
> > if
> > > > > > everything is ok
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Cheers
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Neville Burnell
> > > > > > Business Manager Software
> > > > > >
> > > > > > -----Original Message-----
> > > > > > From: Duffey, Kevin [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> > > > > > Sent: Sunday, 14 January 2001 12:45 PM
> > > > > > To: Orion-Interest
> > > > > > Subject: Any news from Orion yet??
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Hi all,
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Has anyone heard from the team lately? I know I saw a post about
> > a
> > > month
> > > > > > or
> > > > > > so ago. Its been about 3 or 4 months since anything has changed
> > on
> > > their
> > > > > > site, if not longer and now its getting me worried. I can
> > understand
> > > > > > them
> > > > > > trying to organize the company, but did production stop on the
> > app
> > > > > > server? I
> > > > > > wish there was some news once every couple of weeks or so from
> > them on
> > > > > > their
> > > > > > site letting us know what is happening.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Thanks.
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> > >-----------------------------------------------------------
> > >Joseph B. Ottinger [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > >http://epesh.com/ IT Consultant
> > >
> >
> > (-) Robert Krüger
> > (-) SIGNAL 7 Gesellschaft für Informationstechnologie mbH
> > (-) Brüder-Knauß-Str. 79 - 64285 Darmstadt,
> > (-) Tel: 06151 665401, Fax: 06151 665373
> > (-) [EMAIL PROTECTED], www.signal7.de
> >
> >
>
(-) Robert Krüger
(-) SIGNAL 7 Gesellschaft für Informationstechnologie mbH
(-) Brüder-Knauß-Str. 79 - 64285 Darmstadt,
(-) Tel: 06151 665401, Fax: 06151 665373
(-) [EMAIL PROTECTED], www.signal7.de
