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How IBM (and Open Source) Won eBay
DemonBrew wrote to us with a new article in Business2 how IBM beat MSFT, Sun, BEA Systems to win the contract for the new eBay. Cool part is that it's based on Websphere, which has major open source components.
They waited until the very last second and then squeezed their bid in.
Bastards!
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
It did seem very interesting. The article mentions that IBM is still loking for something to "light the fire" and produce large amounts of revenue... maybe hey don't need an internal change, but an external one; businesses realizeing the power and cost savings of open-source software and switching back to big blue.
Moderation: Put your hand inside the puppet head!
What the hell are you talking about? Major open-source components? Which? Last I checked, (I have the Websphere Studio download sitting here, right from IBM's partner site - and I see nothing about open source anything. Is java open source? Or XML?
Open Standards and open-source are 2 different things, and hell - Java isn't an open standard, nor is it open source in the truest sense. What a bunch of bullshit propaganda. Go Microsoft.
what they are going to do with the old hardware. I can see it now your very own piece of ebay right at your house!
I also found this amusing (emphasis mine):
While Java could be called "open," compared with, say, the Windows API, I don't believe Sun has turned control over the language specification to a standards body.
Another proud carrier of the $rtbl flag
"IBM's expertise with the open-standard Java programming language..."
Open standard? Did I read this wrong?
A speech...
JCP - Java Community Process
To take right from their website:
The JCP is the way the Java platform evolves. It's an open organization of international Java developers and licensees whose charter is to develop and revise Java technology specifications, reference implementations, and technology compatibility kits. Both Java technology and the JCP were originally created by Sun Microsystems, however, the JCP has evolved from the informal process that Sun used beginning in 1995, to a formalized process overseen by representatives from many organizations across the Java community.
Come on people, do your research before you blab this stuff.
IBM with their infinite wisdom
(KNOWING what happens when you create proprietary systems), came up with the greatest resolution.
Coupled with their hardware know-how, why is anyone surprised that they won the bid due to eBay's high-load testing?
IBM is heading back towards BIG BLUENESS..even if only one meager step at a time...and to incorporate OpenSource solutions...how novel!
"Just Smile and Nod." --Huck
There has been a fair number of posts about whether or not Java is really an "Open-Standard". The first thing to remember is where this article originates, Business 2.0.
Taking that into account, Java is an open standard. Are there other compilers for Java? Yes. Are there multiple interpreters for Java? Yes. Is the standard published on how it works? Yes (Addison-Wesely publishes several books on it). So, for the average intended reader of business 2.0, Java is an open standard.
I'm probably going to get flamed for this, but something doesn't have to be controlled by an international standards organization to be open.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go prepare for flames as I've posted something that people are going to have problems with.
My Slashdot account is old enough to drink...
... they must have been dazzled by IBM's total bs when it comes to sales. I've worked on many recent projects where IBM has been pushing WebSphere really really hard. Some of it is interesting stuff, other parts of it is real crap. But then I suppose I could say that about any technology. And then there's IBM Global Services... It's a great win for J2EE, but it's too bad for eBay.
Linux has become a houshold verb
And BTW, it's "bested" (past tense), not "best"
I wish I had mod points, I'd mod this -1 has no clue.
The ebay software/business logic is highly proprietary and difficult to understand. The story is how IBM sold ebay to use their software which is based on open source technology including apache, linux. Then of course there is java which isnt open source, but "open standard" (ymmv).
Anyways, peer review of complex business logic by people who don't understand it won't help nothing.
But did they meet the reserve? They might be bragging and lose again.
I really like the closing quote from the article:
Hey, any additional fodder for my efforts to convince my boss to move over to completely open-source technologies is fine with me! It's really heartening to hear a company like IBM say that though. More reinforcement that this paradigm is here to stay, and isn't just some sort of post-modern fad.
Hire a Linux system administrator, systems engineer,
This is great! Linux is almost caught up to other obscure operating systems! Great job, guys!
But... I'm not so sure about the household verb thing. "Eat your mashed potatoes, or I'll go Linux on your a__!" just doesn't seem all that common. The open-source community really needs to work together on this one, but with a little help and corporate cash I think we can pull this off.
I don't know about everyone else, but I for one am very exited about this.
Java isn't my prefered language, but it seems to me like this kind of deal can have a big impact in the industry to promote open standards. With a BIG player like ebay getting rid of asp for java, and probably saving a pritty penny in the process, perhaps M$ will have more reason to re-evaluate thier game plan.
Sigs are out of style, so I'm not going to use one...oh wait..
how IBM best MSFT, Sun, BEA Systems to win the contract
beat best besten?
Desi Noise, Live!
with the tech job market the way it is, whoever made the desicion was obviously following the saying "nobody gets fired for buying ibm."
Are you insane? Ebay uses Oracle to run it's database. You really think that MYSQL can handle a database that size with so many users at once?
IBM Cited In Massive Online Scam
Reuters, Inc.
Ebay (www.ebay.com, NSDQ: EBAY), the world's largest online auction site, is reporting that it has been hoodwinked in an internet scam, involving International Business Machines (IBM), Inc.
"They promised us all of these great services, and even showed us pictures and everything", claims Dave Hubnard, Ebay's CTO.
"It looked so, perfect. They responded to all of our emails quickly and professionally. I really don't know what happened. They even sniped in at the last minute with an ultra-low bid."
Shocked and bewildered, Ebay employees are uncertain when, or if, they will ever see the new services promised to them by IBM.
Attempted telephone calls to IBM headquarters were returned with a "disconnected service" answer.
Just hours before the deal was closed, IBM had the address of its corporate headquarters changed to a PO Box address in the sourthern section of Jacksonville, FL.
Hm.. wonder now if they wont be 'down for maintainance' for a few hours some mornings now? I know that it works out at like 1am or somthing in the USA, but its right slap bang mid morning for UK eBayers... can really balls up your auctions :)
"Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
It is nice to be in the fantasy land and read one thing and remember another. There is nothing in the article that says that IBM will use any open software. They will use WebSphere and most likely DB2. You will NEVER see the code in the open. WAKE UP!
Its interesting to see the existence of Java being linked to IBM more than Sun these days.
What with IBM having the fastest java compiler Jikes,
a Java-base development environment VisualAge,
some stellar java development at DeveloperWorks,
and talks of IBM acquiring Sun
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The statement above is false.
My first thought was that it was a shot at Java and country music, but that would be "Java:code::country:music". Then I thought, well, maybe the reference to "country" is really to "country music", indicating that Java is a superset of code just as music is a superset of country music. Or maybe Java is patriotic...
I give up. Not 'nuff said, apparently.
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
On the one hand, Ebay's backend is now based on some very cool, open source technology.
On the other hand, they use Microsoft Passport, which raises a whole bunch of privacy and security issues.
Are they good or evil? Seems more like a shade of grey to me.
that if MS would have won the bid we would have had something in windows to let us bid and list auctions on ebay automatically. Ebay make a nice tool called mister lister to bulk upload your auctions. It could have become part of the next version of windows. Now MS will have to build it's own auction site from scratch and integrate it into windows.
The moment Sun makes java not free (as in beer), its huge developer base gets sliced in half. There's no way they're foolish enough to try to make people pay just to use java.
Sorry, but I had to work with versions from 3.02
to 4.x and it is really bad. We replaced it with
jBoss/ Jetty which is simply the better solution.
In the time you need to generate a Websphere
EJB jar, I can build, deploy the same EJBs on
jBoss and even run all 40 jUnit tests.
Well you also have This Which clearly shows www.msf.microsoft.com running Linux and Apache. Also the march survey shows several hosts at the bottom which run linux.. but this page seems to be broken, perhaps covered up in embarassment.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Ebay Computer Contract
Item # 4886798269
Category: Computers: Contracts
Currently: $12,378,462
Quantity: 1
First bid: US $10
# of bids: 3
Seller (Rating): Ebay (999999999)
High bid: IBM (10)
Description
You are bidding on a contract for providing software and hardware to power the next generation of e-bidding monstrosi-sites...
Taligent, the company that was created between IBM, Apple, and Motorola in the early 90's - tied with Rhapsody - with the goal of creating a an open platform? I thought that IBM was in the openness game waaaay before Java (???).
I suspect this is not a coincidence.
And how large is your database? How many users connect to it? To how many sites do you replicate it to? How many transactions does it process?
MYSQL isn't even a relational DB. How is it going to run Ebay?
That may be the funniest thing I've ever read.
PHP is pretty decent. Apache is top notch. MySQL is a joke, as far as databases go. It's maybe on par with MS Access as far as scalability.
Can't you just see the headlines? "Ebay's new site: 2,000,000 lines of code, $5,000,000 in hardware and networking infrastructure, no stored procedures, no database fault tolerance, no referential integrity!"
Cheers
-b
More likely, IBM would just buy Sun..
They did the typical IBM thing of selling hardware at a massively low level (they loose money here), and even say that eBay can keep their old Sun hardware. Once they have the foot in the door, and run the support, they strip away hardware bit by bit, replace with IBM stuff, drain a company of money for high support costs, and end up with an all IBM shop in terms of hardware and support.
It's happened time and time again, and killed many a small company that went with IBM support. The total cost is just not worth it.
IBM might be all open source and anti-microsoft, but dude, that doesn't excuse them for the deskstar incident - its almost 3 weeks and i've yet to see my new drive... woa, how off-topic is this.. (i've already reached the cap so i just don't care anymore
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Biz 2.0 readers likely understand the difference between a true open standard and reverse-engineered documentation.
whoops.
Perhaps if you read this, you might be better informed
Funny thing is that music is for the most part subjective. Country music is by far the most popular form of music. At any rate, one could not even come close to objectively stating that country music is better than say rock (whereas one may be able to make an argue for classical music being better than either of the two).
On the other hand, I think one can make a very good objective argument as to why Java is a much worse language than say C++. So, while I'd be inclined to agree with your analogy (if you actually said it right, since I hate both Java and country music), it doesn't really work as an analogy.
Perhaps:
Java is to programming as N'Sync is to rock.
int func(int a);
func((b += 3, b));
I wish I had mod points, I'd mod this -1 has no clue.
...java which isnt open source, but "open standard"
Hi...kettle...this is the pot, you're black.
Ummm...Java *is* open source. The source is available at Sun's site. I've downloaded the source to all the JDK's since 1.1 (the code is often the best documentation).
"Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos!"
http://www.stores.ebay.com/ibm
This is IBM's store at eBay. The cool part is that you can get some really great deals on IBM equipment here. I have already bought from here twice. I work for IBM, and I can tell you that the deals here are better than the employee discount!
eBay has a bunch of idiots for IT guys. They setup one of their oracle machines to core dump onto the root partition. A bug in Solaris 2.6 would overwrite the whole partition if total memory was greater than total disk space. Sun told eBay about this, they didn't listen and install the patch. Guess what, their oracle db cored, and took their whole OS with it. They were down for days...
IBM is doing the Right Thing in capitalizing on the open standards, high reliability, free beer, community-developed software floating around.
All the other vendors give you a single unmistakeable route into a closed box of their design. If I was buying a solution, a vendor that didn't insist they had the One True Way® (and that it cost money) would get more of my trust. I would feel I had a backdoor alternative with a rack of Linux machines and open source software.
IBM acknowledges that you might want to run part of your business on extremely low cost tools.
Then, if you want tools that are a step up in sophistication, then they are there to fill in the gap.
However, in all fairness, IBM's been able to do this because of the huge reputation as ultra conservative banking mainframe vendor types and the foot in the door that they consequently have. That's why small random open source companies would have a harder time replicating IBM's kind of success.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
And even as a study tool, doesn't it show the amount of research IBM is putting into Java?
The statement below is true.
The statement above is false.
Alright, I'm back. Shit, I step out for what, 45 minutes, and this place goes to hell. Looks like we have a long night ahead of us. Well, round up the boys and brew a pot of coffee. We'll see this job through to the end.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
What color is the sky on the little world you live on?
i hate to rain on your parade, but the chance that ebay is going to open up any of the code you list is about 1e-10%.
My question is how much of websphere is really open source? I mean, i know about apache, and the USE the java apis, but what else is there?
the new websphere studio application developer 4.0 is indeed based on open source components. Its base on eclipse which IBM released as open source.
Government is the abdication of your responsibility to a faceless bureaucracy. Anarchy(absence of government)is the a
Let the above post be an example of just how intelligent MS supporters are. Is this how you apply to be an MS "expert witness"?
This post will be modded down for no particular reason by a sweaty 14 year old who is not allowed out past dark.
Just because the source is available doesn't make it Open Source. You are not legally allowed to distribute that code in modified form, and I'm fairly sure you're not even allowed to in unmodified form.
And this is IBM UK's page on eBay UK.
Note the negative and neutral feedback. So many of the big name, blue chip sellers on eBay just can't seem to get it right when it comes to basic customer service.
I think this "open standards" deal with IBM and Websphere fits well with the eBay community values - http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/community/values.htm
eBay can't be all bad......
Brought to you by the author of such childrens' classics as "Some Kittens can Fly!" and "All Dogs go to Hell."
All the trollers of the world.
Red, Yellow, Black or White,
They are precious in His sight,
Jesus loves the little trollers of the world.
They stab it with their steely knives,
But they just can't kill the beast.
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
eBay has crashed - and more than once. It's cost them a fair amount each time. Here's a couple of links
14hrs and 22hrs in 19992hrs and 5hrs in 2001
I think that was obviously what i meant but if you want to be a little karma whore go ahead
The other poster was not quite right about it being free though - if you want to contribute to evolviing Java standards, you can join as an individual for only $100. That gives to the right to propose changes and make comments on drafts of standards before they go public.
They also have company memberships, but those of course cost quite a bit more (a few K I think).
What other standards bodies let ANYONE in that easily?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Read up on the JCP. Java is controlled by that standards body, there are things that Sun would like in there but they have to go through standards like everything else. If it had been up to Sun generics would have been in 1.4 but they needed the extra time to make sure everyone was cool about how they worked. Sun is very careful to work ALL changes through this open process.
The only advantage Sun has is that they have a perminent spot on the executive comittee. But that body decides what Java is, which sun the promotes.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I think this is great news for Ebay addicts like myself. Ebay is down for scheduled maintainance 2 hours a week. This equals 4 days of downtime a year which is unacceptable for a company as large as Ebay. This doesn't even include unscheduled downtime which we know is a lot higher! Yes, I am your typical Linux loving Micro$oft hating Slashdotter, but you can't tell me this downtime has nothing to do with Ebay currently running a Microsoft shop. I unfortunately admin a Win2K network at my job and the results are pretty much the same.
Here's a brief summary of what eBay are currently running....
For the middle-tier and back-end they've got a couple of Sun Starfire E10K servers (with a third on standby for hot-swap fail-over). The back-end db is Oracle, most of the other software is by Veritas. This all uses a 400 disk RAID array (also made by Sun), which is also mirrored in real-time.
They're using seven Sun Enterprise ES450s to provide the iron for searching, and the web front end is served by sixty-or-so Compaq servers.
It seems impressive! ....but it's worth noting that some of the above may be a bit out-of-date, as it's based on the info in these articles, which are quite old now:-
Article on Internet Week about eBay's steps to ensure performanceSun's page on what-they-do-for-eBay part way down the page, an article entitled: An Integrated, High Availability Cluster Solution)
You gave several examples of open source software, but those aren't open standards.
If Java was an open standard, independent and compatible implementations would be possible. That's not currently the case with Java, although it seems to be changing for the better.
How much did IBM pay you to say?, "Cool part is that it's based on Websphere". How much for, "MS SQL Server has come along way".
...The best part about it is: this is only the tip of the iceberg...
FWIW, there have been more than just 2 outages with eBay and at least a few of them have been related to their Oracle backend.
Websphere certainly isn't going to fix that, but it might help improve maintainability of what has traditionally been ISAPI code. There is also the stability quandry of a DLL that is sharing space with your IIS process, any fault here could cause the web server to die.
While WebSphere is a more professional looking system from an admin perspective, my experience has shown WebLogic to be the superior performer.
Eric Sarjeant
eric[@]sarjeant.com
Also don't forget that eBay is primarily an NT4 shop. With W2K long-gone and .NET upon us, they are probably also considering how they might be able to maintain their NT4 investment.
Ultimately, eBay may be factoring in TCO. Reports are showing Linux obviously has a substantially lower TCO, so by migrating to a Java engine the eBay NOC is giving itself a chance to roll some Linux servers into their NT server farm.
Eric Sarjeant
eric[@]sarjeant.com
...and they thought it was the Department of justice. Well, it's an honest (sic) mistake; the appeal is going so well.
Infuriate left and right
to have read the article before posting, and naive enough to admit it.
You'll learn.
Infuriate left and right
On the other hand, I think one can make a very good objective argument as to why Java is a much worse language than say C++.
Nope. There are 100 OO languages you could have picked to compare Java against, and you picked one of the few that is "objectively" worse. And I'd be hard pressed to call either musical in any way.
Um, how is MySQL not relational? How can something with SQL in its name not be relational?
websphere was really really REALLY bad?
Oh, I understand now.
Invoicing, Time Tracking, Reporting
If that is the case then the same can be said about Windows NT. I understand they use BSD and that is only the open source code we know about.
Although I agree MySQL is ill suited for medium/large projects (I'm a Sybase ASE man myself) I also used to fall in the trap of 'no foreign keys, so must not be relational!'
e ttemborough / odd12R.html (also here http://www.soi.city.ac.uk/~tony/dbms/codds_laws.ht ml)
Codd's "12 Rules" for a 'Fully Relational DBMS' are pretty grueling:
http://newton.uor.edu/FacultyFolder/CK
By those definitions, there are few, if any 'fully' relational RDBMS. MySQL is just really, really 'less' Relational than Oracle, MS SQL, Sybase, etc.
Thanks,
--
Matt
From the article: In 2001, IBM filed a record 3,411 patent applications, making it the country's top patent filer for the ninth year in a row.
Gad-frigging-zooks! It's gonna take a lot of free software advocacy to make up for 3000+ patents being filed per year.
- I love animals. I try to eat at least one a day.
Country music is certainly not the most popular form of music, it's one of the LEAST popular forms of music.
maru
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I've always thought that java was the key to helping linux gain popularity. Java tools like IntelliJ's IDEA (my favorite IDE) run nice on windows, linux, and my mac. I see cross platform apps written in java as one of the keys to msft's demise. Java is getting better at GUI with every release. If you think it sucks my guess is that you haven't played with the most current stuff. It's getting great. I love it. Vanguard
That which does not kill me only makes me whinier
But how the data is stored doesn't determine whether a database is relational or not. It's how the data is viewed and accessed. If the user can see the data as tables and run a join query against them, it's a relational database! :)
The evolution of a website, of which I won't say.
.NET
.NET now.
94 - Perl
99 - ATG Dynamo
02 - MS
IBM websphere was a consideration for 99 and 02, but anyone who has done any development in websphere will tell you the same thing. Err.. it sucks if you haven't heard by now.
Shoot me now, but it's all
Live web cams
IBM forgot about Java?
What rubbish.
IBM makes up to date JDKs for all their platforms (even OS/2), plus Linux and Windows.
They support one of the leading open source Java IDEs, eclipse.
And their application server offering, Websphere, is a J2EE server.
Java does have a future on Linux. I think the future of Linux is tied to the future of Java -- I wouldn't use Linux if it didn't support Java well.
Tom
I have discovered a wonderful
"Eat your mashed potatoes, or I'll go Linux on your a__!"
That's an adjective, or maybe a noun.
If you're going to be elitist, it would help to be elite.
[IBM technology strategist Irving] Wladawsky-Berger says: "Open-source is bigger than IBM".
:)
Such things make me happy for the entire day
Sequences instead of "auto_increment"... *drool*... Actually good client program... yummy.
"good" will never win, nor will "evil", they will simply dance the forbiden dance forever. there will never be complete security, because there will always be somebody straying from the party line, and there will always be crime because our inner child always wants something. criminals are masters at playing off of this desire. actions are truly what differentiates an individual. intelligence (cia/fbi, and psycho/social) is truly amusing when one digs down into the muck.
That depends on whether or not the guy's statement is an objective statement or an expression of his/her opinion. Stick "I think" in front of the analogy and it's much more difficult to argue with. I don't think there's enough content in the guy's post to know either way, whether he was trying to make an objective or subjective statement.
I'm having a difficult time understanding how music can be anything but entirely subjective. As opposed to "for the most part" as you say. Music is good or bad based on a scale of how it moves the listener. So it's entirely possible that, for one listener country music is best, classical is second best, and rock is worst. How can you come to the statement that it might be possible to objectively argue that classical is "better" than either rock or country? Objectively judging something that's entirely subjective seems like nonsense to me. So your first statement (that one couldn't objectively state that country music is better than rock) is something that I can easily agree with, but not your parenthetical statement.
Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
There are several including IBM, TowerJ and KaffePro.
Suck figs.
There is also the stability quandry of a DLL that is sharing space with your IIS process, any fault here could cause the web server to die.
It doesn't necessarily have to run in-process.
Even a bad mod_perl implementation can bring down Apache in a similar manner; a mod_perl based perl script gone awry could bring Apache down in a hoot.
Thank you. Your penis is small.
Ah, that's the distinction. Makes sense. Thanks.
So MySQL didn't used to enforce foreign key constraints, huh? Interesting....
By the way.. thats BREAK, not BRAKE..
"Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
Sorry but you are just too funny.. like its now a personal insult against the GREAT America or somthing? I have no problem with America.. I want to go to America.. I have friends who live in America.. I LIKE America!
But I DO have issues with people who try to take the piss outta me for spelling incorrectly, only to find that they too have spelt a word wrong in their 'flame' - so its always worth pointing stuff like that out.
Now just pack it in. This thread grows boring.
"Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
Oh, and by the way Spellmaster.. thats 'brilliant', not 'brillient' :)
"Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
"Week" of mind? I guess that as a "dumn" Brit I can't quite get my head around your command of the English language..
Now just give it up.. its a pretty sure bet that the next post you make will be riddled with errors and I will be forced to humiliate you again.
"Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
Ok ok.. thats enough.. this was fun for the first two weeks ;)
I know that you can spell perfectly well, and that you have just been spelling like a "morron" for a bit of fun.. I'll leave it at that.
Cya.
"Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"