To Kyle, about WAS5.0

[Simon Song]

Kyle,
Got some news on the coming WAS5.0, it is so different in System Management wise. Just curious, if your undergoing book project will cover it or not?
I am not sure how many customers will jump to 5.0 directly or migrate to 4.0 then to 5.0 later? But definitely, we need either redbooks or your book to start work in 5.0 more efficiently.
I have to take a very deep breath before I dare to dive into 5.0...

[Mike Jones]

I have some related questions. It would appear that the leap to EJB 2.0 is significant (local interfaces , CMR relationships, and the standard query language). If a client was planning to start a project today, but not go live for a year, what would you use to develop with. You could use WAS 4.0, and plan for rework, or you could use the 5.0 beta for development. How solid is the 5.0 beta? Could you use it for development now, and switch to 5.0 production when it comes out? When is it suppose to come out?

[Kyle Brown]

Simon, yes my book will cover WAS 5.0 and WSAD 5.0. As to Mike -- start now with the 4.0 level of the product. The betas are not stable enough for production use. What's more you can't ever predict what changes will occur in timing. Also, it's not that different for most things. WebSphere (and WSAD) already support EJB relationships that are 80% of EJB 2.0 CMR relationships (the exception being M-N relationships, which are really different). The use of EJB-QL vs. SQL can be minimized if you architect your system right. I wouldn't worry about it if I were you.
Kyle

[Ren Li]

I found this thread https://coderanch.com/t/71268/Websphere/WAS-Preview-showcases-EJB introduced a little about WAS 5.0. Where to find more information? Thanks.
Ren

[Mike Jones]

Kyle,
I wanted to clarify something. I wasn't proposing using the WAS 5.0 beta in production. I was suggesting the WAS 5.0 beta could be good enough to develop with and then do final tests and move to production when the WAS 5.0 release comes out. Of course, this would be dependent on several things, including the following:
1) How long until you expect you will be ready for production
2) How long until the official WAS 5.0 version is released
3) If the WAS 5.0 beta is stable and robust enough for development (i.e. not production).
So given that, would you have any further input to 2 and 3 above.
Thanks,
Mike

[JeanLouis Marechaux]

I had the same kind of question a few weeks ago.
As WAS 5 was not ready yet, my idea was to use WAS 4 with the EJB 2.0 features it contains (CMP-CMR, EJB-QL...)
I would like to let you all know that IBM Tech Support adviced me NOT TO USE CMP-CMR2.0 with WebSphere 4
According to them, the CRM supported in WAS 4 is not guaranteed to be supported in WAS 5. So an EJB 1.1 using IBM-CMR-CMP2.0 feature will not work "as is" on a WAS 5 app server.

just my 2�
[ April 23, 2002: Message edited by: Bill Bailey ]

[Kyle Brown]

Originally posted by Mike Jones:
Kyle,
I wanted to clarify something. I wasn't proposing using the WAS 5.0 beta in production. I was suggesting the WAS 5.0 beta could be good enough to develop with and then do final tests and move to production when the WAS 5.0 release comes out. Of course, this would be dependent on several things, including the following:
1) How long until you expect you will be ready for production
2) How long until the official WAS 5.0 version is released
3) If the WAS 5.0 beta is stable and robust enough for development (i.e. not production).
So given that, would you have any further input to 2 and 3 above.
Thanks,
Mike

Mike -- sorry, I meant to write "not usable for development". What we have available so far is a "Technology Demonstration" of WAS 5.0 -- it's basically pre-alpha. HUGE CHUNKS of it do not work. What's more there are no tools for WAS 5.0 yet -- WSAD 5.0 does not have a beta yet.
Personally, I would expect these tools to come out in beta form in the next couple of months, but I would STILL not plan on using them until they reach the e-GA (electronic GA) form, which is slated for 3Q 2002.
Kyle

[Kyle Brown]

Originally posted by Bill Bailey:
I had the same kind of question a few weeks ago.
As WAS 5 was not ready yet, my idea was to use WAS 4 with the EJB 2.0 features it contains (CMP-CMR, EJB-QL...)
I would like to let you all know that IBM Tech Support adviced me NOT TO USE CMP-CMR2.0 with WebSphere 4
According to them, the CRM supported in WAS 4 is not guaranteed to be supported in WAS 5. So an EJB 1.1 using IBM-CMR-CMP2.0 feature will not work "as is" on a WAS 5 app server.

just my 2�
[ April 23, 2002: Message edited by: Bill Bailey ]

Bill, that's friggin' ludicrous. I'm contradicting that advice. We will certainly provide migration tools for the relationship features in 4.0 to allow them to run in 5.0.
Have you read my articles on the WAS 4.0 relationship metadata format yet? I mean good grief -- the whole reason we wrote the metadata format and tools the way we did is to make compatibility with EJB 2.0 easy.
Now, on one point was tech support right -- I would not use the EJB-QL preview we included in WAS 4.0 -- it's not syntatically compatible with the final EJB 2.0 EJB-QL. Just use SQL for your finder methods...
Kyle
P.S. If you'd like to send me a private email with the tech support person's name and/or your PMR number I will get to the bottom of this and "straighten" them out on our future support for EJB relationships.

[JeanLouis Marechaux]

Thanks for your post Kyle.
Your point of view is very interesting... And I think it could be a good idea to let the Tech Support know about EJBs because their advices were exactly the opposite :
1) Do not use CMP-CMR 'cause we are not sure it will be supported in WAS 5
2) Go ahead with EJB-QL... We guarantee the compliance with the one in the EJB spec.
As far as I understand your thread, none of these is true.
I'll post you a private message asap about the PMR number.
Many thanks.
[ April 24, 2002: Message edited by: Bill Bailey ]