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This page is a starting point for folks who want to learn about and use WebSphere eXtreme Scale. The idea is that it will serve as a tutorial, which will grow over time. Your feedback and contribution is welcome in developing this space. We will start initially by linking to and categorizing existing material, and move to adding new material in a hands-on approach. Our blog will chronicle additions to the content. Feel free to comment on this page, blog entries, and/or use our forum. Feel free to suggest new topics to cover, as well as add your own information. We want these pages to be used and developed by folks interested in using and exploiting WebSphere eXtreme Scale.

What is WebSphere eXtreme Scale?

WebSphere eXtreme Scale operates as an in-memory grid that dynamically processes, partitions, replicates, and manages application data and business logic across hundreds of servers. It provides transactional integrity and transparent fail-over to ensure high availability, high reliability, and consistent response times. WebSphere eXtreme Scale is an essential distributed caching platform from IBM for elastic scalability and the next-generation cloud environments.

Elastic means the grid monitors and manages itself, allows scale-out and scale-in, and is self-healing by automatically recovering from failures. Scale-out allows memory capacity to be added while the grid is running, without requiring a restart. Conversely, scale-in allows on-the-fly removal of memory capacity.

For more detail, and especially some background and explanation in comprehending the above text, see this article. Read Billy Newport's description of eXtreme Scale in under 300 words here!

What WebSphere eXtreme Scale can do for you

This page lists usage patterns and links to customer use cases describing eXtreme Scale exploitation, as well as how to get started with eXtreme Scale.

Introducing the new IBM WebSphere DataPower XC10 Appliance

The XC10 is an appliance for caching up to 160 GB of grid data. Find out more here.

The WebSphere eXtreme Scale Tutorial

The WebSphere eXtreme Scale Tutorial starts you down the coding trail with WebSphere eXtreme Scale.

References / Annotated Bibliography

Article	Type	Comment
Getting Started: Understanding eXtreme Scale and how it works	Article	The first article to read if you are new to eXtreme Scale. Ted Kirby discusses the underlying principles of eXreme Scale and explains how the product exploits them to your advantage. It provides a product overview, along with a range of use cases. Published 11/4/2009.
Principles and best practices for building high performing and highly resilient WebSphere eXtreme Scale applications	Article	By four IBM Distinguished Engineers, including WebSphere eXtreme Scale Chief Architect Billy Newport. Published 4/14/2010.
IBM Extreme Transaction Processing (XTP) Patterns: Leveraging WebSphere Extreme Scale as an in-line database buffer	Article	Lan Vuong's excellent article about write-through caching: how to do it, code, and measured results. Published 6/3/2009. See Billy and Rob discuss work behind this article in this video.
Scalable Caching in a Java Enterprise Environment with WebSphere eXtreme Scale	White Paper	A benchmark report of the case described in Lan's article with update performance numbers from September 2009.
IBM Extreme Transaction Processing (XTP) patterns: Fast and scalable asynchronous processing with WebSphere eXtreme Scale	Article	Rob describes an interesting and general advanced use case of scalable processing of data in the grid where it is store.  Published 05/26/2010.
Scalable and robust HTTP session management with WebSphere eXtreme Scale	Article	eXtreme Scale is a great store for HTTP Session data. Why put this short-lived data in a data base? See how eXtreme Scale provides cross-data center failover for HTTP Session data in this excellent article from 5/27/2009. See Billy and Rob discuss session replication with eXtreme Scale in this video.
Innovations within reach: Stretching the limits with elastic software	Article	Rob describes the concept of Elasticity, and how eXtreme Scale provides it. Published 3/3/10.
Enhancing xsadmin for WebSphere eXtreme Scale	Article	eXtreme Scale includes a tool called xsadmin, a Java™ application that interacts with WebSphere eXtreme Scale processes and displays information regarding the grid runtime, such as shard placement, available containers, and so on. This article discusses how you can enhance xsadmin to provide new functionality and better consumability for your eXtreme Scale deployment. By John Pape. Published 12/10/2008.
IBM WebSphere eXtreme Scale V7: Solutions Architecture	Redpaper	A longer, more extensive introduction to eXtreme Scale, including a more detailed technical explanation of the important concepts, interfaces and objects in the product. An update of the first few chapters of the Redbook. Published 12/14/2009.
User's Guide to WebSphere eXtreme Scale	Redbook	An oldie but goodie. While it refers to version 6, it does a thorough job of explaining eXtreme Scale from scratch, and carries on through application examples. This is the eXtreme Scale bible. Published 12/19/2008, updated 7/15/2009.
Product Info Center	InfoCenter	The official product documentation. It contains an Overview, Administration Guide and a Programming Guide, including Javadoc for all the APIs, all with search capability. Start here and search for your favorite eXtreme Scale topic. The Overview is also a great place to start.
IBM Education Assistant	Education Online	A series of on-line topics and classes. Each class is a presentation with audio, or you can get the slides independently. There are also some labs. Distributed and z/OS versions of 7.0 are covered.
Product Homepage	web page	The official product home page.
Product wiki	Wiki	The product wiki. A community wiki. The WebSphere product developers actively participate in this wiki, so there is a lot of good content here. Check out the home page to see all the content.
Product Forum	Forum	A forum that is part of the product community. This forum is actively monitored by product developers and is a great place to get your questions answered and talk to other eXtreme Scale users.
Billy's Blog	Blog	Billy Newport is an IBM Distinguished Engineer who is the Chief Architect of WebSphere eXtreme Scale. Follow Billy's Blog for new developments in eXtreme Scale and its usage.
Rob's Blog	Blog	Rob is an XTP evangelist with deep eXtreme Scale knowledge and a performance background. Follow Rob on ulitzer.
websphereXTP Blog	Blog	What's new with XTP and eXtreme Scale, and what the evangelists are up to.
	the product (trial version)	You can download the full product and play with it for free! The only catch with this version of the product is that you have to reboot it after it runs for 8 hours. That is quite long enough for developing samples and giving the tires a real good kick! See this video of Billy and Rob describing the trial version. It is always up to date, but is a standalone version. It does not have the WebSphere Application Server integration features.
REST data service	Wiki page	See all REST data service links on this page.
eXtreme Scale TV Episode Guide iTunes	channel	Videos on all aspects of eXtreme Scale, mostly starring Billy and Rob. See the episode guide here. Note that most can be downloaded for free from iTunes!
"Cash in with Distributed Caching"	Presentations and Replays	A series of presentations by IBM and non-IBM folks about distributed caching, including John Rymer from Forrester Research, Scott Lewis from MSI System Integrators and Billy Newport from IBM. From March 2010.
15-minute Introduction to eXtreme Scale	Presentation	A 15 minute presentation on eXtreme Scale by Ted Kirby to the RTP WUG on 3/30/2010.
Introduction to WebSphere eXtreme Scale (15 minutes)	Presentation with audio and slides	This 15 minute presentation is slightly older (November 2009), but comes with audio.  Get the presentation slides here.
Smarter Scalability: A Practitioner's Perspective buzzTalk	Presentation	Why and when to use eXtreme Scale, with a HTTP Session Management use case. By Billy Newport, IBM DE and Chief Architect of eXtreme Scale, Sridhar Sudarsan, IBM Software Services for WebSphere, and Russ Davidson, Bank of America. 2/18/10
eXtreme Scale in Japanese	Presentation in Japanese	Audio and slides in Japanese. As a non-Japanese speaker I cannot comment further on content. Looks to be part 1 of 7 parts. Published 4/2/10. See more (Japanese) videos at developerworksj channel.
websphereXTP Billy		follow events from these accounts.
Samples Gallery	Sample code and utilities	From the Product wiki. Get started with eXtreme Scale by downloading, reading and using these source code samples and utilities. Note that Billy posts some code samples and utilities in his blog.
IBM WebSphere eXtreme Scale 6	Book	Book by Anthony Chaves published 11/5/2009.
Evangelist's Developer's Community	Community	Community of developers exploring and providing information about emerging technologies in IBM WebSphere software. eXtreme Scale content
Developer's Community on Facebook	Facebook	Facebook page for the Developer's Community.
Introduction to WebSphere eXtreme Scale with some popular use cases	Video	Hear Billy describe WebSphere eXtreme Scale in his own terms. A classic! Published 10/26/2008.
Billy Newport Discusses Parallel Programming in Java	InfoQ	Billy discusses parallel programming in Java with eXreme Scale. 4/16/10.

How does eXtreme Scale compare to... ?

Product	Comparison
DB2 Purescale	From Billy's Blog: IBM DB2 Purescale is very cool, IBM WebSphere eXtreme Scale makes it better. Also comments in the superiority of both to Oracle RAC.
memcached	From Billy's Blog: memcached versus DataGrid, dumb server versus smart server...
in-memory databases like SolidDB	From Billy's Blog: WebSphere eXtreme Scale (ObjectGrid) positioning with in memory databases like SolidDB

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