Have questions? Start here to find answers to commonly asked questions related to the IBM® WebSphere® eXtreme Scale Amazon® Machine Image (AMI).
Notes:
1. Several of the statements in this document deal with the future direction of IBM products. IBM plans are subject to change.
2. Refer to the IBM and AWS FAQ for general questions related to use of IBM products on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). This FAQ supplements the IBM and AWS FAQ with specific information about WebSphere eXtreme Scale.
What is WebSphere eXtreme Scale Version 7.0?
WebSphere eXtreme Scale processes massive volumes of transactions with extreme efficiency and linear scalability.
- Provides fast application performance: Use eXtreme Scale as a powerful distributed cache to speed application access to data
- Provides a foundation for high-throughput transaction processing: Increases responsiveness and accelerates the performance of data-intensive applications yielding higher throughput
- Replaces expensive disk operations with replicated memory operations for lower costs, easier scaling, and higher performance
- Provides linear scalability: Scale out without limitations
- Automatically replicates data for high availability and fault tolerance: Lower the risks of data loss and limit after-hours recovery and reconciliation efforts
- Provides automatic data placement: Increase overall availability by placing data and its replicas according to user preference
- Flexibly defines the location of data: Optimize the use of server resources
For more information, see Features and benefits of WebSphere eXtreme Scale
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What is included in the eXtreme Scale AMI?
The operating system of the eXtreme Scale AMI is 32-bit SuSE Linux® Enterprise Server 10 (SP2). WebSphere eXtreme Scale Version 7.0, IBM SDK 6.0, and DB2 JDBC drivers V9.5 FP4 are contained within this AMI.
- To determine the level of SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 10, run the following command:
- To determine the level of Linux kernel, run the following command:
- To determine the level of the SDK, run the following command:
/opt/ibm/java-i386-60/bin/java -version
What eXtreme Scale solutions work well on AWS, and what solutions do not?
For optimal results, develop and test applications that require minimal interaction outside the AWS environment for development and testing.
Some systems are less suited for an Amazon EC2-based eXtreme Scale solution. Careful consideration and testing are required if you want to use Amazon EC2 to deploy such a solution. Some examples are included in the following list:
- Aggregating applications outside of Amazon EC2: If your eXtreme Scale solution requires a highly available, high-performance connectivity to backend services located outside the AWS environment, such as local services, the overall performance and availability might be at risk. Consider other solutions where you have more control over bandwidth, performance, and availability.
- Integration with external corporate user directories such as LDAP: This example is similar to the need to aggregate external applications, but access to the user directory is a global requirement, which increases the importance of a reliable, secure, and fast connection between Amazon EC2 and the external registry. This capability is not provided by default in the AMI. However, several VPN-based solutions are documented in the AWS forums.
How does the eXtreme Scale AMI differ from the way IBM traditionally sells these offerings?
The offering on AWS differs from the IBM traditional purchasing model in a number of ways:
- Pricing: IBM traditionally sells this software on a processor value unit basis. For AWS this software is offered on the standard AWS pricing model.
- Entitlement: You are entitled to only use the software that is provided in the AMI.
- Operating system and underlying infrastructure: If you purchase eXtreme Scale traditionally, you can install the product on multiple hardware and software platforms and work with multiple database servers. In the AWS environment, the hardware and operating system are static in the AMI and cannot be changed.
- Support: Support is provided from Amazon. Read the details.
Are there restrictions with using the eXtreme Scale AMI?
In general you can use this AMI to develop and test commercially-available, network-delivered applications or software as a Service applications for users in the marketplace. Refer to the Development AMI license agreement for additional details.
When was Version 7.0 released to market?
See the announcement letter for IBM WebSphere eXtreme Version 7.0 (June 23, 2009): IBM WebSphere eXtreme Scale V7.0 enables your most demanding business applications to scale with your business
If WebSphere eXtreme Scale customers are under current maintenance, do they receive AWS AMIs for free?
No. However, existing WebSphere eXtreme Scale customers might decide to deploy their existing products on AWS. See PVUs required for Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud for more details.
Which AWS instance types are available with the WebSphere eXtreme Scale AMI?
For single user development purposes, you can use a Standard Small Instance (m1.small) or the High CPU medium instance (c1.medium).
What education resources are available?
For additional resources, refer to the IBM Education Assistant for WebSphere eXtreme Scale .
How do I access the UNIX® console of my AMI instance?
The AMI instance is preconfigured to allow you to access the UNIX console using a secure shell (SSH) and the private key you generated and specified when you created the instance. With this configuration, you can open a secure console without specifying the root password of the instance. The boot sequence of the instance presents panels for license agreements and the localization of the image.
If I suspect a problem occurred with my eXtreme Scale AMI, how do I begin to fix the problem?
See the Troubleshooting topic in the WebSphere eXtreme Scale Information Center.
You can also use the AWS forums to see if your problem has been discussed with others, and to solicit the help of the AWS user community in correcting your error.
How do I monitor the eXtreme Scale AMI to ensure I am not running out of capacity?
Use traditional UNIX tools to determine if the instance has enough memory and disk capacity. Because eXtreme Scale Version 7.0 is a Java-based product, you must also employ traditional Java monitoring mechanisms, such as monitoring garbage collection activity using the verbosegc JVM option.
Can I apply publicly available eXtreme Scale Version 7.0 fixes to my AMI?
Download the IBM Update Installer Version 7.0.0.5 to apply fixes to your WebSphere eXtreme Scale environment. See Using the Update Installer to apply maintenance packages for more information.
Where do I find more information eXtreme Scale?
See the WebSphere eXtreme Scale Version 7.0 Information Center.
