_______________________________________________________________ - - OS/2 WARP FM Transmitting 100% Pure Java Energy _______________________________________________________________ - ___________________________________________________________________ VOLUME 4 - OS/2 WARP FM '99 - InfoFlash 3 http://www.software.ibm.com/os/warp/warpfm ___________________________________________________________________ News You Can Use about OS/2 Warp ... IBM Markets Vinca's Fault-tolerant Mirroring Backup for OS/2 Warp Server In the past the OS/2 team has actively promoted Vinca's StandbyServer for OS/2 Warp. (There was even an OS/2 WARP FM InfoFlash dedicated solely to Vinca back in 1997. See http://www.software.ibm.com/os/warp/warpfm/warpex36.) Now IBM is pleased to announce that it is an official remarketer of Vinca products. In this new role, IBM can now provide one-stop shopping for OS/2 Warp Server and Vinca’s StandbyServer for OS/2 Warp products. Using a dedicated high-speed link, the Vinca StandbyServer for OS/2 Warp continually mirrors data from a main server to a secondary back up. Then if the primary server ever fails, the standby system can generally take over all server functions automatically and immediately. It's likely that end users won't even notice the switchover and if they do they would only experience a short pause in what they are doing. As the technical support team, troubleshoots the problem with the main system, users usually can continue working. The system should remain available. The Vinca solution also hooks into the Tivoli systems management system. For more information on Vinca StandbyServer for OS/2 Warp Server, see http://www.vinca.com/products and click on "OS/2 Warp" underneath the "StandbyServer Product Line" heading. What the people of New Orleans call a "Lagniappe" In Southern Louisiana you hear this word a lot. Loosely translated it refers to an unexpected bonus or something for nothing. Digging into the package of OS/2 Warp Server for e-business you find the expected (the Warp Server code) as well as the unexpected in the form of the WebSphere Application Server Standard Edition. We interviewed Paraic Sweeney, Vice-President of WebSphere Marketing, about the purpose of WebSphere, its synergy with OS/2 Warp Server for e-business, and the value it brings to this package. Question: What was the impetus for WebSphere product family? PS: Three main factors drove IBM to design and deliver WebSphere. The first has to do with the fact that the Internet has fundamentally changed how we do business. Organizations need to extend their processes to the Web naturally and seamlessly. And they need to consider the "customer experience" of doing business on the Web by creating a compelling Web presence that delivers. For example, if an airline decides to use the Web as a channel to sell tickets, it needs to figure out possible scenarios associated with selling tickets. The new system needs to be completely integrated with the existing ones. Recently a friend of mine bought a ticket over the Internet. The next day she found a better deal to the same destination. Since her first ticket hadn't arrived yet, she called the airline to cancel the ticket, only to learn that the representatives manning the phones were unable to cancel a reservation that originated from the Web. Her call was transferred to the "Web people" and the shortcomings of the airline's Web integration were very visible to her. The second factor is consumer expectation. In an incredibly short period of time, customers have come to expect a lot of service when they do business on the Web. At first, Web surfers were satisfied with "brochureware." Now they require the ability to perform safe transactions. And these expectations are continuing to grow. The next step is customization where visitors get a personalized Web experience based on past buying behavior and preferences. The third factor follows logically from the first two. Organizations need tools to build, deploy and manage the applications that deliver the seamless service that customers expect. For example, let's say you have a Web site for participants of a road race to register, requiring them to provide personal data and payment of the registration fee online. The site also will provide event information prior to the race, and results and standings according to various factors such as age, after the race. To create the site, tooling is used to construct a pleasant and useable look and feel. You also need to construct a logical flow through the site with seamless connections to a back-end database to get the results. This first set of tools handle the design and programming, or "build" stage. Once that's complete, the next step is to put the site on a server. The server needs to support the functions on the site with a runtime environment that can handle the requisite performance and capacity demands. Since it's often difficult for Web designers and programmers to create the connections to the back end, the serving environment should include them. This is the deployment, or "run" phase. Finally you should be able to manage the Web site -- to give it the flexibility to handle variations in workload and changing content requirements. You want to make sure that people are not going to have to wait just because the site gets more visitors than expected. You also need to have a way to make content changes while the site is in production. Basically the fundamental management question is "Can you live with this site while it's in production?" When you put this all together what's needed is an all-encompassing solution that lets you easily and quickly build a site with the kind of advanced functions that your customers expect, and that integrates well with your existing systems. And last but not least, once the site is up and running,it needs to be flexible, manageable and scaleable. Question: So what does WebSphere bring to the table to address these issues? PS: On the "build" side we have Websphere Studio which offers the ability to program complex interactions through Java(tm)** servlets. It's the Java servlets that allow you to manipulate your customized content and hook into your back-end systems. WebSphere Studio makes complex tasks generally easier than other methods. When you put this together with VisualAge for Java, you wind up with tooling for servlet creation, site structuring and layout, as well as full Java programming capability. WebSphere handles deployment through its multi-platform application server. The Standard Edition is being offered with the OS/2 Warp Server for e-business. We also have an Advanced Edition that focuses on medium to high-level transactional environments used in conjunction with dynamic web content generation and supports the industry standard Enterprise JavaBean programming model. And large enterprises should look at our Enterprise Edition which offers a robust solution for the most demanding and complex e-business applications. It combines TxSeries, IBM's world class transactional application environment, with the full distributed object and business process integration capabilities of Component Broker. Together these three editions offer a solution that scales as your requirements grow and your environment becomes more comprehensive. WebSphere Performance Pack meets the challenges of Web site scalability, performance, and differentiated quality of service, both through the features of each of its major components (load balancing, caching, distributed file system) and through its integration of interoperable features to ensure that end-to-end solutions are more effective and less costly to deploy. With its scalability, deployment flexibility and multi-platform support, Performance Pack is intended for use by both corporate enterprises and Internet service providers. The Performance Pack was developed originally for workload balancing on the Nagano Olympic Winter Games. This pack certainly proved itself there by helping the site to handle up to 110,414 hits per minute at its peak. In fact, The Guinness Book of Records officially has recognized IBM for setting two world records in Internet traffic on the 1998 Nagano Olympic Winter Games Web Site -- "The Most Popular Internet Event Ever Recorded," and "The Most Hits on an Internet Site in One Minute." I can't stress enough the importance of Web site management -- the last thing you want is to have your site go down at its most popular time. WebSphere also brings manageability to your Web site. It includes systems management capabilities that fit into your overall systems management structure as provided by Tivoli products. Question: Why does it make sense to pair WebSphere with OS/2 Warp Server for e-business in a single bundle? PS: This pairing makes so much sense because WebSphere is an excellent tool for helping OS/2 Warp Server customers realize their e-business goals. The companies that are going to buy OS/2 Warp Server for e-business are the ones that have determined that it's the best way to leverage their existing infrastructure while taking advantage of the latest Internet technologies such as Java and thin-client computing. WebSphere lets OS/2 Warp Server for e-business customers exploit the potential of Java -- namely execute Java applications on the server. What this means for companies is that their Java programs can run securely and can be administered easily. It also means that any client with a browser capability -- no matter how thin -- can take advantage of the power and stability of OS/2 Warp Server for e-business. The strength of WebSphere as an application server, combined with the proven robustness of OS/2 Warp Server, means that companies generally can be confident that their Web applications -- Internet, intranet or extranet -- will be available when needed. And when demand has grown to the point beyond the capabilities of an Intel processor, all of the WebSphere applications can be scaled up to a larger capacity server. Digging into the old mailbag ... Dear WarpFM Folk, I realize that this isn't exactly your baliwick (sic) but I've not been able to find anyone else to give me an answer. I have OS/2 Warp and IBM's Netscape Navigator 2.02 for Warp. Is there a more recent version of Navigator? Does IBM even support Navigator anymore? Does anybody support Navigator or similar for Warp? Thanks for your help. Surfing in Santa Monica Dear Surfing, Yes, Netscape Communicator 4.04 is available for free download now. You can find it by going to the OS/2 Warp Webpage at www.ibm.com/warp and looking in the section called 'News'. Following the link there that says 'Download Netscape Communicator 4.04' will take you to a complete description of the Communicator product and its components. If you are not familiar with the Communicator product, it contains the Netscape Navigator that you know and love, as well as Netscape Messenger for e-mail, Netscape Composer to create your own HTML documents, and Netscape Collabra to facilitate discussion with colleagues or Internet newsgroups. I think this will satisfy your need. Thanks for your continued interest in OS/2 Warp WarpFM =-=-=-=-= Another user writes ... "VOLUME 4 - OS/2 WARP FM '99 - InfoFlash 2 encouraging me to visit page http://www.software.ibm.com/os/warp/warpfm for the latest WARP FM document. Yet, when I visited the recommended page ... (it) claims the current issue is still Nov98 (as it has for months): Frustrated in Fargo Dear Frustrated, In the InfoFlash dated 2/99 at the end there was a piece that reads: "Revamping of WARP FM For 1999, WARP FM is undergoing a change of emphasis. Rather than focus our energy on a big issue that comes out monthly or bimonthly, we will be publishing InfoFlashes as news and announcements occur. In this way, we can get you the information you need on a more timely basis. The more in-depth feature articles that ran in the monthly will appear in our newly renamed division newsletter, SecureWay Connection. To sign up for the hard-copy version of this newsletter, send an e-mail note to enetwork@us.ibm.com with your name and mailing address. You can also opt to receive an electronic notification that the latest issue is available on the Web. " In response to this change we are currently in the process of rearranging that page so that the InfoFlashes appear at the top instead of the bottom of the page, and the articles/issues that are older than 1 year are moving to a new "archive" page. This should make it more obvious what we are doing and make the newest information more readily available. WarpFM =-=-=-=-= Keep those cards and letters coming in, folks. I will try to answer as many as I can. Pardon our Dust! As I noted in the reply to Frustrated, we are in the process of rearranging the WarpFM Web Page. I hope you will be patient with us as the page is not quite ready to go at this writing. Also, I received a very large number of addressing errors from the issue I sent out last week. Because of the sheer volume, I have been unable to get all the updates made as yet. I will be making the changes over the next few weeks, so if you have written to have your name removed, or get this from a friend rather than through your own subscription, I hope to have this ironed out very soon. Again, thanks for your patience. That's all for this issue ... watch for the next one in your in-basket soon. # # # Back Issues of OS/2 WARP FM are available on-line at http:// www.software.ibm.com/os/warp/warpfm. For more information on the OS/2 Family of products see: http://www.software.ibm.com/os/warp. Check out other Network Computing Software Division Publications -- Subscribe to Java Update at http://www.software.ibm.com/mailing-lists/java-update. Visit the on-line edition of the SecureWay Connection newsletter at http://www.software.ibm.com/network/connection/. * Indicates trademark or registered trademark of International Business Machines Corporation. ** Java is a trademark of Sun Microsytems, Inc. in the United States and other countries. *** Indicates trademark or registered trademark of respective companies. Copyright IBM Corporation 1999 All Rights Reserved _______________________________________________________________ - Thank you for your interest in OS/2 WARP FM To unsubscribe send the following 1-line message to: - listserv@mail.software.ibm.com - signoff warpfm For additional information visit the OS/2 Warp Home Page at: - http://www.software.ibm.com/os2warp/ _______________________________________________________________