[ajug-members] Re: WebSphere App. Srvr. on IBM iSeries architecture

[Marc Silverboard]

We've been running WAS 5.0.2 on iSeries (V5R3) in production for several 
years.

One interesting feature of WAS on iSeries that I'm not sure you can do on 
any other platform is the ability to run multiple instances of WAS, 
completely independently in their own JVM. This has enabled us to run both 
production and development environments on the same LPAR.

Some of the things we've encountered that are specific to the iSeries 
platform:

1. Support - The Websphere App Server multiplatform support team is mostly 
unfamiliar with iSeries. Support cases have sometimes taken a little longer 
to resolve because we've had to involve both WAS support and iSeries support 
techs to identify where the problem is and which team is equipped to solve 
it.

2. Updates - Fix packs for the iSeries version of WAS do not come out on the 
same schedule as other platforms. They are usually delayed for a few months.

3. It's rare that we encounter any significant differences in behavior 
between WAS running on our developers' Windows desktops and WAS running in 
QA or production on the iSeries. However, there have been a few cases - 
maybe about once a year. For instance - recently, we had a class that used 
an SQL query that worked when running on WAS on Windows, but threw errors 
when we moved it over to the iSeries. ISeries support helped us identify and 
correct them problem - a recent PTF had modified the default maximum file 
wait time attribute (a file locking timeout) on the iSeries file system that 
underlies the DB2 layer. The fix was a simple as changing the timeout -- but 
no one could offer a good explanation as to why the query ran fine on 
Windows, against the same tables, but didn't on iSeries, REGARDLESS of which 
JDBC driver was used.

WAS is reliable as a production server running on iSeries, but it definitely 
won't hurt if you have some staff members who are familiar with both the 
iSeries platform and with J2EE.

Marc Silverboard
Web Developer / Administrator
Columbian Mutual Life Insurance Company
msilverboard at cfglife.com

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Mon, 16 Oct 2006 13:41:34 -0400
From: Barry Hawkins <barry at alltc.com>
Subject: [ajug-members] WebSphere App. Srvr. on IBM iSeries
   architecture
To: "General AJUG mailing list" <ajug-members at ajug.org>
Message-ID: <4533C44E.3 at alltc.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8

Esteemed colleagues,
    I have a prospective project that involves WAS 5.0 running on IBM's
iSeries architecture.  Yeah, I know, as if WAS 5.0 wasn't bad enough,
it's on iSeries.  I had a project before with WAS 5.1 ND on zSeries, and
there were a number of zSeries-specific gotchas that were really
problematic.  I know at least some shops here in town are on iSeries;
are any of you running WAS on it, and if so, what pitfalls have you
encountered?

Regards,
-- 
Barry Hawkins
All Things Computed
site: http://www.alltc.com
weblog: http://www.yepthatsme.com

Registered Linux User #368650