IBM WebSphere SDK for Web Services
VanMan writes "IBM is offering a free download of their WebSphere SDK for Web Services. It's based on open specifications for Web services such as SOAP, WSDL, and UDDI and runs on both Linux and Windows operating systems. The IBM WebSphere SDK for Web Services includes software developed by the Apache Software Foundation, so it merits a look-see."
I'm assuming you're asking who are IBM's competitors for this product.
Websphere started out life as a Java servlet engine. Therefore, it was basically an outgrowth of Apache JServ and subsequently Jakarta. So much so, that IBM even included the Apache HTTP server and threw a management GUI on it. Other than the Apache line, BEA's WebLogic line is the only real competitor to IBM.
Intelligent Life on Earth
JBoss is the most relevant competitor.
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Ya gotta at least TRY around here!
Google for it.
Intelligent Life on Earth
As no one else has mentioned, Oracle9i is also an app server and is in competition with Websphere.
Anyway, I work with Websphere 3.5 at work (4.0 is available) and can tell you that it's much more than Jakarta Tomcat.
the reason Websphere comes with Apache (well, it comes with a variant called IBM HTTP Server) is because it's not a HTTP server and it needs one to operate. Websphere handles only the jsp/java requests. Its advantage over something like Tomcat is that it's particularly well-suited to the enterprise market and supports massive scalability, intelligent load balancing (servers can talk to each other to find out what's going on) and a wide-array of add-ons (Websphere Portal Server, Websphere Translation Server, etc).
Just to throw in my own opinion, I hate Websphere. I have to run it on NT 4 and it crashes a LOT under heavy load. NT stays up as does Apache, but Websphere itself is constantly down when supporting about 70,000 unique visitors a day on two servers. I am told, however, that Websphere is extremely stable, although those same people can't seem to make MY servers stable for some reason.
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