IBM launches WebSphere upgrade

SOMERS, N.Y. - This week IBM will begin shipping a new version of its application server - which is to become the underlying platform for Big Blue's entire software line. The new version includes autonomic computing features aimed at helping customers lower administrative costs and optimize infrastructure performance and availability.

For example, WebSphere Application Server Version 5.0 includes self-configuring features. The application server can adjust applications based on how they are being used, IBM says.

WebSphere can protect servers by screening out malicious requests, IBM says. In the self-healing department, WebSphere can repair components while handling workload, and interrupt or restart an application without human intervention.

These features complement autonomic capabilities that IBM recently incorporated into its Tivoli Systems management software and DB2 database products. Autonomic computing is a key component of IBM's strategy for e-business on demand, whereby companies can access computing resources as though they were utilities and pay for only the processing power they use.

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SOMERS, N.Y. - This week IBM will begin shipping a new version of its application server - which is to become the underlying platform for Big Blue's entire software line. The new version includes autonomic computing features aimed at helping customers lower administrative costs and optimize infrastructure performance and availability.

For example, WebSphere Application Server Version 5.0 includes self-configuring features. The application server can adjust applications based on how they are being used, IBM says.

WebSphere can protect servers by screening out malicious requests, IBM says. In the self-healing department, WebSphere can repair components while handling workload, and interrupt or restart an application without human intervention.

These features complement autonomic capabilities that IBM recently incorporated into its Tivoli Systems management software and DB2 database products. Autonomic computing is a key component of IBM's strategy for e-business on demand, whereby companies can access computing resources as though they were utilities and pay for only the processing power they use.

IBM CEO Sam Palmisano last month publicly put his weight behind the utility concept. He told an audience of IBM's largest customers that IBM is investing $10 billion in technology and services to enable e-business on demand.

Tou-Soua Heu, the lead technologies specialist at The St. Paul Companies, is a bit skeptical about the reality of autonomic features, but likes the theory. Administrators spend a lot of time configuring WebSphere to match application requirements. "Autonomic capabilities would enable us to step back a little bit and focus on other tasks," Heu says.

The St. Paul, Minn., insurance company plans to migrate its WebSphere Application Server Version 4.0 instances to the 5.0 upgrade in the first quarter of next year, and then migrate its Version 3.5 instances to 5.0 shortly after, Heu says. Driving the company's decision to upgrade are application development requirements for Enterprise JavaBeans 2.0 - support for which is built into 5.0 - and looming support-expiration deadlines for Version 3.5, he says.

Michele Rosen, a research manager at IDC, says IBM has targeted systems integration with this release.

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"More and more application development is being done for the sake of integrating and extending legacy applications, and it's important that the application server includes that integration capability," Rosen says.

IBM also beefed up Web services support in Version 5.0. The product includes a Web Services Gateway for managing Web services across the Internet and a private Universal Description, Discovery and Integration repository for organizing Web services.

An integrated workflow engine lets developers compose and choreograph Web services that link multiple business processes - such as checking inventory and shipping - without having to understand all the underlying complexity, says Scott Hebner, director of WebSphere marketing.

Down the road, Version 5.0 will become the underlying platform for IBM Software Group's broad portfolio, including Tivoli, Lotus and DB2 products, Hebner says.