Skip to main content


developerWorks  >  WebSphere  >  Products  >  WebSphere Application Server  >

New to WebSphere Application Server

developerWorks


What is WebSphere Application Server?
What can I do with WebSphere Application Server?
How does WebSphere Application Server fit into SOA?
What are the WebSphere Application Server products and requirements?
What is WebSphere Extended Deployment?
How can I learn more about WebSphere Application Server?




What is WebSphere Application Server?

IBM® WebSphere® Application Server V6.1 is the premier open-standards Java™ 5 Standard Edition (J5SE), Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) 1.4, and Web services-based application server. It helps you deploy and manage applications ranging from simple Web sites to powerful on demand solutions. WebSphere Application Server offers a rich application deployment environment with a complete set of application services, including capabilities for transaction management, security, clustering, performance, availability, connectivity, and scalability.

What this means is that WebSphere Application Server provides support for:

  • Deploying an application.
  • Managing the resource requirements for the application.
  • Ensuring the availability, isolation, and protection of the application from other applications and their resource requirements.
  • Monitoring and securing the application.

In addition, the WebSphere Application Server product family includes several unique packages that are designed to meet a wide range of customer requirements.


Figure 1. A sample WebSphere Application Server single server installation
Architecture

New to the WebSphere Application Server product family are features designed to simplify administration and to increase productivity for developers, like enhanced security and expanded standards support.


Back to top



What can I do with WebSphere Application Server?

With WebSphere Application Server, you can host Java Web applications (.war and .ear files) built on popular Java technologies like JSF, JSP, JSR168-compliant portlets, Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), and Web service standards that can interact with databases and provide dynamic Web content. The bundled IBM HTTP Server enables one-step deployment of these applications to the Web.

Several new features included with WebSphere Application Server also streamline administration and development. The full J5SE support includes support for several new JSR-* standards. Application Server Toolkit V6.1, a development solution built on Eclipse™ 3.1 technology, includes several new tools and wizards focused on simplifying administration and expediting development and deployment, including tools from the open-source Web Tools Platform.


Back to top



How does WebSphere Application Server fit into SOA?

WebSphere Application Server is the foundation of IBM's SOA application infrastructure and is the basis of the deployment stage of IBM's SOA lifecycle.


Figure 2. WebSphere Application Server in the Deployment stage of SOA
WebSphere Application Server in the Deployment stage of SOA

WebSphere Application Server enables you to deploy your SOA applications in a high-availability environment that is fully compliant with many new Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) Web services standards, including WS-Basic Security Profile, WS-Notification, and WS-Business Activity.


Back to top



What are the WebSphere Application Server products and requirements?

The system requirements for your environment depend upon which of the products you select. The WebSphere Application Server product family includes the following unique packages, designed to meet a wide range of customer requirements:


Figure 3. The WebSphere Application Server products
WebSphere products
WebSphere Application Server Community Edition
WebSphere Application Server Community Edition is a lightweight J2EE 1.4 application server built on Apache Geronimo, the open source application server project of the Apache Software Foundation. WebSphere Application Server Community Edition is designed to help you accelerate your development and deployment efforts, harness the latest innovations from the open source community, provide an readily accessible and flexible foundation for building Java applications, and it's easy to download and costs nothing to use.
WebSphere Application Server - Express
The Express edition offers small and mid-size businesses an affordable out-of-the-box entry point for managing simple yet dynamic Web sites with an easy-to-use Web application server and development environment.
WebSphere Application Server
The base edition of WebSphere Application Server provides full J5SE and J2EE 1.4 compatibility (as well as Web services support above and beyond the specification), rapid development and deployment features that reduce development cycle time and maximize the ability to use existing skills and resources, and tight integration with IBM Rational tools.
WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment
Network Deployment is built on top of WebSphere Application Server, providing advanced deployment services that include clustering, edge-of-network services, Web services enhancements, and high availability for distributed configurations.
WebSphere Application Server for System z
The System z (z/OS®) edition uses the same programming model as WebSphere Application Server for distributed platforms, but is specifically optimized to leverage the unique qualities of service provided by IBM zSeries hardware and the z/OS operating system.
WebSphere Application Server for iSeries
The iSeries edition leverage the opportunities the Web provides and, with other WebSphere products, can extend the value found in your existing "green screen" applications to provide new capabilities within the multitude of devices connected to the Web.

For more information, and to see additional WebSphere Application Server offerings, see the WebSphere Application Server product family overview.

Check the supported hardware and software requirements for the specific product and version you need. Also see the WebSphere Application Server Information Center for a library of online documentation for all products and versions in the WebSphere Application Server product family.


Back to top



What is WebSphere Extended Deployment?

WebSphere Extended Deployment enhances your Network Deployment infrastructure with autonomic computing, which simplifies application administration and enhances the Quality of Service of your business-critical applications. Through autonomic computing, WebSphere Extended Deployment monitors the health and resource utilization of your application servers, diagnoses memory leaks, and intelligently restarts application servers experiencing a memory leak. Using the business goals you specify, WebSphere Extended Deployment directs your applications toward maximum availability and performance.

For more information about WebSphere Extended Deployment, visit the WebSphere Extended Deployment product page.


Back to top



How can I learn more about WebSphere Application Server?

Follow these links to learn more about what is new in WebSphere Application Server V6.1 and what else the WebSphere Application Server product family offers.


Back to top


 logo

Document options

Document options requiring JavaScript are not displayed


Special offers
Download websphere software
Industry formats & services with pureXML samples

More offers