Another Java product, one of WebSphere's strengths is its cross-platform options, running on AIX, Solaris, Windows NT, AS/400 and OS/390 (though the development studio runs only under Windows 95/98/NT). WebSphere is bundled with a SSL-enabled version of Apache web server, but also supports IIS and Netscape's Enterprise and FastTrack servers

We found the development environment somewhere in the mid-range-- nowhere near as easy to use as Tango, but much better than Oracle Application Server. Included wizards are generally two-way, and the SQL generation wizard handles joins and multiple table operations particularly well. We also really liked the separate database access servelet that abstracts the SQL logic from database access.

Enterprise JavaBeans support is very strong, and in fact WebSphere objects are EJB Entity and Sesson Beans. CORBA is supported via IIOP, and the Advanced Edition of WebSphere handles a complete set of CORBA services and includes ORB functionality. COM/DCOM objects are supported only if wrappered in the Studio or using IBM's VisualAge for Java tool. XML output is supported, and some basic XML parsing (tag recognition) is provided now.

The price point for entry-level WebSphere is good--the basic developer studio is $495, ad the Standard Edition of the WebSphere server is $795--but if you want a full-fledged, high-performance system, you'll probably end up with the Advanced Edition ($6000), along with the Performance Pack ($7500, adding server-level load balancing, web proxy caching, content filtering, and the AFS file system.)

While WebSphere includes some support for LDAP, it's not fully integrated and is included primarily as a client interface to other LDAP directories for security use. We also found that LDAP can't be used with the included admin UI. There's no generic SNMP support, and SCCAPI isn't supported, although there is a proprietary source code control tool available. Integration with MQSeries, CICS, Encina DCE and IMS is available, but built-in transactional functionality (through the Java-based transaction monitor) only works if you're using DB2 as the datastore (which is included with WebSphere as the universal database for its persistent store). Database access for anything other than DB2 is handled via JDBC.

Load-balancing, which requires the Performance Pack, is supported only at the system services level, not per application, and the algorithm is rules-based, calculating current load using platform type, CPU and memory usage, etc., to maintain an acceptable QoS. No session-level failover is provided, although it can be implemented by customizing Java templates included in the Performance Pack. Finally, native connection to legacy and ERP systems is weak at present, although an adaptor is available seperately for SAP.

In short, WebSphere shows strong promise, but still has some distance to leap before being at the same level as some of its competitors.

Oracle Application Server
Oracle comes into the web application server marketplace from two main perspectives-- first, from their solid history of producing superior database products, and second, as one of the major proponents of the thin-client paradigm, in the form of the Network Computing (NC) initiative. Given this background, it's somewhat surprising that their application server doesn't make a stronger showing. We found that OAS has some good features, but it lacks a critical central IDE, and in general provides a difficult and convoluted development process. In addition, connectivity to legacy systems is weak, and there's no real abstraction layer between data and business logic. For an Oracle shop, where developers are already familiar with the tools, OAS may be a good choice, but it needs work from the general developer's perspective, especially considering how good the IDEs of some of the competing products are.

OAS runs under a wide variety of platforms and with most web servers-- Apache, IIS, Netscape and Spyglass are all supported under AIX, HP-UX, Linux, Solaris and Windows NT. The two-phase commit support is strong, whether to one or multiple data sources, and the underlying architecture seems generally sound. We found numerous features which support high availability: the process isolation which keeps one crashing app from bringing down others seems robust, and there is an automatic transaction rollback and auto-recovery feature for processes that go down. Transactions can be handled either programmatically (explicitly) or declaratively (implicitly). Load balancing is flexible and fairly sophisticated, with round-robin, hard-wired proportional, and dynamic adaptive algorithms, which have a good degree of granularity available for modification to fit individual needs.

Yet some basic architectural features are absent or difficult to implement. For instance, to make use of connection pooling, we had to write the code by hand. Also, while a deployment wizard is available for moving files (in our case Java JAR files) from development to production, we had trouble getting this feature to work with the deployment manager.

Standards support is good, including LDAP, X.509 certificate authentication and SNMP management (also, via the Oracle Enterprise Management tool); however, OAS doesn't support XML at all. OAS contains a CORBA 2.0-compliant ORB (Oracle's own), and besides IIOP, also makes use of CORBA's OTS (Object Transaction Service) and Java's JTS (Java Transaction Service). OAS also can interoperate with third-party transaction processors, such as IBM's MQSeries and CICS.

OAS is relatively inexpensive to get into as a developer, and in fact, is free to registered Oracle Developers. Beyond that, OAS is sold on a per-concurrent-user license, at $760/8 users (list). With "Bronze Support," a basic level of technical support, that price rises to $920 (discounts are available via Oracle's online store).

Overall, OAS has some strong architectural points, and top-to-bottom Oracle shops already used to Oracle's development tools may well want to give OAS a try, but until Oracle improves on some of the weaknesses, especially those dealing with development and deployment, there are better overall choices on the market.