Good EJB application server?

[Pratibha Gayake]

I am new to EJB world. Which EJB application server will be a good one to start with? (means easy to understand, use)
I have both Windows 98 and Windows 2000 OS.
Thanks

[srivatsan srinivasan]

hi prathiba,
you can start with weblogic server,starting with it may be little bit difficult but once u r through it will be very easy.you can get the documents in http://edocs.bea.com/
srivatsan

[Sergei Voropay]

I would recommend Orion Application Server from Ironflare (www.orionserver.com), which is absolutely free for development and non-commercial deployment. I came through this decisionmaking process myself before I settled with Orion. The majority of "true" enterprise application servers (WebLogic, WebSphere, ATG Dinamo) are exorbitantly expensive and give little in return being sometimes terribly convoluted, which is explaned by the way they evolved from non-java TCMs. Orion is taking a clean sheet approach being written entirely in Java and providing the best performance in J2EE arena. You probably won't find any easier deployment and configuration among other application servers considering the fact that Orion can be installed, configured and fully deployed in about 2 minutes. The configuration of the entire server is controlled by just a few xml files, so if you're ok using an editor, configuring it will be breeze. Orion supports hot and auto deployment, which really speeds up the development process as compared to other app. servers. Among other thing it supports stubless deployment, which is also a big help if you're developing application clients. As far as following the latest api releases Orion is also in the lead already providing previews of Servlet 2.3 API and EJB 2.0 API.
Not so long ago Oracle licenced Orion Application Server 1.5.2 and included it in its Oracle9iAS product as an official J2EE container. I guess this fact should also validate Orion as a serious player in J2EE field.

[srivatsan srinivasan]

hi sergei,
sorry for the intrruption.this is my opinion about weblogic.
1) weblogic is a pure java based application server.and also it is the best j2ee server accepted by the world and also most of the companies go for weblogic.
2) weblogic server has the highest load balencing capability and it's cluster envirnment is the best known thwn other servers.
3) weblogic6.0 also requires evrything to be configured in xml file and also it supports hot and auto deployment.
4) it has inbuilt graphical load and stress test capability.
and also our company mobile platform is deployed in weblogic server which is accessed by thousands of customer everyday.
i have not worked with orion server,but if u can tell any advantages of it over welcome,it would be great.

srivatsan

[Sergei Voropay]

Hello Srivatsan,
Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to completely discredit Bea WebLogic, it clearly has some technical edge over Orion being a little more mature, but it comes at a price or I should say at a significant price which may be prohibitive for anyone starting with the technology. If I had infinitely deep pockets, I would surely stick with WebLogic for both development and deployment (actually I'm not sure about development), but paying almost $2K per developer seat and almost $20K per server processor deployment license is not really what I have in mind. And I'm not talking about clustering and support because if you through in those in the mix, you can easily come up with sub-mil figures per year. Orion favorably compares to this being absolutely free for both development and non-commercial deployment and just $1500 for server license per node for commercial deployment regardless of the number of processors. Throwing additional node in the Orion cluster costs the same $1500, which is dirt-cheap in J2EE arena. If you're closely watching J2EE application server market, there is a trend toward so-called "commodization" of application servers - application server market is getting more and more competitive with wider acceptance driving down the prices. And it looks like the commodity application servers like Orion, In-Q-My (subsidiary of SAP), Unify e-Wave, and jBoss are going to eat away a significan market share from big guys. Orion is just getting ahead of the curve. Sorry guys, but dinosours always loose in the end, and the lean and mean always win...
Feature-wise, Orion is not far behind WebLogic and should be considered a serious contender especially due to its blazing performance. Orion shines in terms of performance due to its tightly integrated design and according to benchmarks performed by Orion developers and Oracle (and my own experience with Orion on lower-end hardware), Orion app. server beats the sh*t out of the competition in the J2EE arena.

[le taylom]

Weblogic is NOT a 100% java Application server.

[John Watson]

Your EJB Application Server depends on the end platform it is to be deployed in.
If you are experimenting on NT and/or UNIX, I would use
BEA WebLogic.
If however, your company is using any IBM products for
middleware (MQSeries) etc. Also, if you are going to
deploy on OS390, it's best to go with
IBM WebSphere Application Server.
I have used both WebLogic and WebSphere on projects.
I find IBM Visual Age/WebSphere provides a lot of EJB
development support that speeds up development and tesing.

[Pratibha Gayake]

Thanks Srinivasan, Sergei, John, Taylom
for your valuable input. Last month I brought Ed ROman's Mastering EJB. I understod went through the book 2-3 times and understood the concepts. I downloaded BEA 6.0 web server. And got really stuck with deployment. I kept reading its documentation. But somehow I am not able to deploy a simple Hello bean. Now i will try again
Thanks
Pratibha

[hanumanth reddy]

Jboss is the the best applicationserver to start learning it

Http://www.cyberdosti.com

[greg philpott]

le, read this: http://www.bea.com/products/weblogic/server/j2ee_compliance.shtml
Pratibha, If you are learning weblogic you should check out the examples that are bundled with it - that is the best way to learn.
Examples, if installed, are located in the /samples/examples directory of your WebLogic Server installation and are available from the Start menu.

[Chris Stehno]

I suggest looking into JBoss (www.jboss.org) 100% Pure Java open source free EJB application server ... I have been pretty impressed with it.
------------------
Chris Stehno (Sun Certified Programmer for the Java 2 Platform)

[Robert van der Vliet]

I'm also pretty impressed by JBoss in terms of ease of use and ease of installation. I've used Dynamo, Enhydra and I cut my teeth on Weblogic. JBoss was the smoothest for me by far (although Weblogic is certainly the biggest and flashest :-)

[Jim Baiter]

I am interested in the Gemstone server with the parallel VM architecture. Has anyone tried it?

[karthik suresh]

hi,
first learn ejb using j2eesdk 1.3. learn to develop and deploy ejb's
using it.
Then move to an application server.
if u are working in an office then u can use weblogic to learn,
since the office might have a licensed copy.
Weblogic has a 30 days evaluation period and expires after that.
On the other hand,if u are learning from home,
then go for either Jboss,Orion or Allaire Jrun Developer version.
These are not evaluation versions so no problem.
Of these 3,i think Jrun has the best documentation.

[trupti nigam]

i would suggest weblogic 6 application server.before using the server first go through the document to understand how it manages the J2EE.
At first it is very difficult to understand how to write the deplyoment descriptors.but just go through the examples given.& study the deployment descriptor.
Actually the deployment descriptors can be modified to meet the requirements of the examples that u are writing.
thanks
trupti