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F E A T U R E

Web Application Servers Come of Age

July 23, 2001
By Gautam Desai, Eric Sanchez and Joe Fenner

SilverStream Software SilverStream Application Server 3.7

SilverStream Application Server 3.7 is a standards-based application server that functions as the foundation of SilverStream's e-business platform, which includes components for XML (Extensible Markup Language) and portal services.

Its application development and deployment are its major strengths. The product's development environment offers comprehensive debugging capabilities, straightforward development, strong platform support, and support for leading third-party development environments. Organizations building an enterprise solution using J2EE will find value in SilverStream, as it provides most of the services and ease-of-use features that are required for rapid, low-cost development of e-business applications.

SilverStream Application Server (screen view)

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SilverStream offers good results and objects caching, as well as database connection and thread pooling. The product uses round-robin and weighted round-robin for load-balancing. For availability, it stores user sessions in cookies, in memory or in a database. Fault tolerance is available at the application and session levels.

SilverStream Application Server does not integrate with third-party QoS (Quality of Service) products or transaction-processing monitors, but it includes the SilverStream jBroker message-queue service that uses JMS. The product provides a tool for performance monitoring and is SNMP-compliant for integration with third-party management consoles.

SilverStream Application Server 3.7, pricing is based on number of servers or named users; bundled as editions. SilverStream Software, (978) 262-3000. www.silverstream.com

Sybase Enterprise Application Server 3.6

Sybase's Enterprise Application Server 3.6 (EAServer) is aimed at Internet and portal solutions, and is available in developer and deployment editions.

It is ideal for organizations seeking a high-performance transaction-processing-based application server.

Sybase's EAServer (screen view)

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EAServer offers complete security features, comprehensive message-broker technology and strong load-balancing capabilities. The product provides flexible integration with third-party solutions and excellent standards support. However, QoS and performance-monitoring features are limited.

For development, Sybase offers a wizard-based tool that enables drag-and-drop development. The development environment is limited to running within Windows environments and lacks testing features, content management, source control, project management and advanced debugging capabilities.

Enterprise Application Server 3.6, $595, developer; $2,995, deployment. Sybase, (510) 922-3500. www.sybase.com

Art Technology Group Dynamo Application Server 5

ATG's Dynamo 5 is an e-commerce platform for business-to-business and business-to-consumer applications. The Dynamo application platform, based entirely on Java and designed for J2EE compliance, comprises the Dynamo Commerce Server, Dynamo Scenario Server, Dynamo Personalization Server and Dynamo Application Server. The product allows applications to be built by business users with "scenarios" -- customization and commerce transactions based on business language.

ATG has positioned Dynamo as the platform for scenario-driven online customer management that lets business managers optimize their customer interactions across the enterprise. Because Dynamo provides Java interfaces and components that can be wired together, it requires little low-level programming. In addition, given ATG's extensive partnerships, Dynamo is an attractive offering for companies seeking a solution that provides not only development features, but also personalization and e-commerce functionality.

The product offers many methods for load-balancing -- simple round-robin, weighted round-robin, performance-based and load-based algorithms for a high level of scalability. However, Dynamo's other capabilities for reliability and performance are limited.

Dynamo incorporates excellent built-in administration tools and works with third-party management products. It provides extensive analysis features to monitor performance and usage. On the development side, Dynamo has strong support for Java development, as it is fully certified for the J2EE and J2SE (Standard Edition) specifications and officially supports the J2ME (Micro Edition) specification.

Dynamo Application Server 5, custom pricing. Art Technology Group, (617) 386-1000. www.atg.com