Re: Glassfish

Hi Thorbjørn,

Does this mean you have initial experience with running
Glassfish on AS/400?

I'm not sure if this was directed at me or Glenn. You can read his response. Let me say first that my answer is not flame-bait, just my own thoughts from years of dealing with the AS/400 (since System 3,) PC's, and Java (since 1997.) If anybody wants to discuss strengths and weaknesses with the goal of reaching optimal outcomes, I'm happy to discuss. If it's "my dog's bigger than yours," I'll watch the food fight, but that's about it.

First, it would be difficult to put Glassfish on the AS/400 as it stands, because the available downloads all have platform specific installers. One could compile the source themselves, but I'd rather be developing.

Actually, though, I'm a proponent of using the best tools for the job (IMO, of course.) The AS/400 obviously has many strengths, but I think database and security are the most outstanding. From several vantage points, I don't think webserver is a strong point. Even if it was, in a time of sub $1000 quad core machines, I'd rather put the server load on one or several almost throwaway boxes. That's in general.

There clearly could be other factors to make as AS/400 server the choice. But normally, I would proceed just as Glenn is doing: put the server on another box and talk to the AS/400 as needed. That's one reason I'm so big on portable applications. Done properly, the app could be moved to/from the AS/400 as appropriate, with mostly configuration changes. There actually is a JSR out to standardize configuration so even that wouldn't be necessary. No knocking down resources that can be used for other applications.

I recently came off of, and am still supporting, a WebSphere app running on an AS/400. My suggestion even there, was to run WebSphere on a different box (superseded by the client's "company policy".) However, you may find it interesting that even on my current Glassfish project, it runs on a blade that is managed by an AS/400.

I'll have more to say as time goes on (if anyone's interested,) but so far Glassfish (SJSAS) is great. I'm running JSF/Facelets/RichFaces. The project is pretty much data entry, data table display ( I may have more to say about that in respect to some threads that have appeared here previously, ) and image/pdf downloads. And we expect to put the conceptGO site on Glassfish in the next few weeks.

Glenn, as you get the time and motivation, I'm sure we all would appreciate hearing about your experiences as well.


Joe Sam

Joe Sam Shirah - http://www.conceptgo.com
conceptGO - Consulting/Development/Outsourcing
Java Filter Forum: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/java/
Just the JDBC FAQs: http://www.jguru.com/faq/JDBC
Going International? http://www.jguru.com/faq/I18N
Que Java400? http://www.jguru.com/faq/Java400

----- Original Message ----- From: "Thorbjørn Ravn Andersen" <thunderaxiom@xxxxxxxxx>
To: "Java Programming on and around the iSeries / AS400" <java400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, October 29, 2007 1:00 PM
Subject: Re: Glassfish


Joe Sam Shirah skrev den 29-10-2007 17:26:

Hi Glenn,

It shouldn't be any different, other than driver specifics, than setting
up a pool for any other database. I'm in the initial stages of a project
that is using Glassfish V2 ( actually SJSAS 9.1 ) and will shortly be doing
the same, except to a SQL Server database (the client is non-AS/400.)

Does this mean you have initial experience with running Glassfish on
AS/400? What is your findings?