Customer Reviews

IBM(R) WebSphere(R): Deployment and Advanced Configuration

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is basically a sequel to another recent text, "IBM WebSphere System Administration". Here, Barcia et al focus on the problems involved in deploying a WebSphere application. It may be heavily used, within a large company, say, or exposed to many queries from users coming from anywhere on the Internet. They point out that numerous books exist to aid developers of J2EE applications, but relatively few on how you would then deploy and continually administer those applications. Partly, this imbalance is due to the container-specific nature of the latter texts. As shown here. The book has a comprehensive discussion of how to manage a WebSphere. But relatively little carries over to running JBoss or Oracle's 10g server, for example.

A useful feature of the book is how it can help a regular sysadmin make the transition to being a WebSphere sysadmin. A possible upward career move. The knowledge here is more specialised than that for running a generic AIX or linux cluster. But there is enough overlap in some topics to make it a logical move. For example, the book talks about the WAS network deployment architecture. Essentially, it is for load balancing and redundancy. The natural purview of your sysadmin.

Also, if you're not a sysadmin, but an IT manager facing WebSphere deployment issues, you may want to consider redeploying a sysadmin here. Show her this book and see if she's interested.

Finally, we have in one reference, all of the important considerations that must be taken into account, when deploying and administering WebSphere applications. The book is based on the deep subject matter expertise of the authors, but more importantly, also on their significant engagement experience over the last 5 years with WebSphere clients. While the book is sufficiently rich in technical detail, so as to appeal to even the most experienced WebSphere administrators, the authors write with an engaging style that can provide knowledge and insight for the most novice of readers. Finally, there is much in the way of J2EE best practice that would well serve J2EE developers.

"IBM Websphere: Deployment and Advanced Configuration" provides a single reference for your organization's IT staff to design and most importantly, use J2EE applications and technologies.

The most useful concepts learned from this book were how to automate so many tedious processes that are bound to the development and deployment cycle. The text provides a great starting point for understanding surrounding technologies like ANT and wsadmin. Implementing these automated processes has saved time and eliminated errors.

Aside from recommending best practice deployment concepts, the text provides a hefty resource on application server settings as well. This book has been such a blessing in its ability to provide not only the "how" we enable or modify a setting, but also answers the "why" we would want to do such a thing.

Finally, the text does an excellent job conveying information regarding J2EE technologies and advanced server configurations to provide high availability systems, performance increases, and security hardening.

This book is a must have for any enterprise running J2EE architectures and doubly so if you are using IBM Websphere.

I laughed, I cried, it's a real page turner. Seriously, if you want to know the best processes and procedures to get your J2EE application into production in a seamless repeatable manner, then this book is required reading. They guys have written the book on WebSphere application deployment, long before this book was published. This book is based on experts in the field. Read, put it on your shelf so you can refer back to it, and don't forget the excellent code samples.

This is a comprehensive book which covers every topic from installation, to application design and performance tuning with WebSphere. Their is very little code, a surprising number of screenshots. The text is uniformly architectural, ranging from somewhat in-depth (e.g. the coverage of EJBs), to very in-depth (e.g. the chapter on security).

If you are new to J2EE development and you are looking for an overall field guide to the topic at the architectural level, then this may be the book for you. If you are looking for in-depth coverage of specific topics, like EJBs, deployment, or performance tuning, then you should look for other books that are more in-depth.

For individuals working in the systems administrations space for WebSphere Application Server, this book is a must have. Covering most aspects day to day administrations this book explains clearly and concisely the why's and how's of WAS best practice.

It breifly describes the main concepts that a sys admin would encounter and then goes on to discuss the deployment issues around that particular subject. (See coverage section in the editorial review)

One of the most useful aspects of the book is it's attention to the wsadmin scripting utility (and its integration with ANT) that is favoured by most sys admin's but is lacking in good examples even in the info center. Unfortunately all of the scripting is done using JACL (they explain this reasoning in the book) and it would have been nice to have seen some in Jython. (Note that as of v6.1 there is a utility that does a pretty good job of converting JACL scripts to Jython see http://www-1.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=180&uid=swg24012144).

Although this book is based on WAS v5 the majority of it's contents is applicable to v6 also so it is certainly worth the purchase. I work with WAS from v4 - v6 and the book has been very useful to me as a WAS specialist.

I should note that I am an IBM employee and as a WAS technical specialist I work with many organisations helping them to implement their WAS environments. I recommend this book to them without reservation and this is high recommendation as we tend to be more critical than most about WAS material.

One of the biggest gaps in app development is where the app developers leave off and the system administrators take over. This leaves quite a bit of work for the 2 groups to haggle over and is really neither one's expertise. Until now I've not seen another book that bridges that gap and provides really great examples of what and (more importantly) how to have automated processes for building and deploying applications.

When a book makes me miss my stop on the bus, I know it's a good book. "IBM WebSphere Deployment and Advanced Configuration" is the WebSphere 5 book I have been waiting for. It is the final one in a series of three, but stands alone if you are familiar with J2EE. (The first book in the series is Kyle Brown's WSAD book - also excellent and they complement each other well.)

Four IBM WebSphere specialists write the book. They manage to explain everything in a way that is easy to understand, yet detailed. After explaining the WAS (WebSphere Application Server) architecture, the book focuses on the major J2EE components. The authors include best-practices and recommendations throughout. There is even an appendix on Web Services.

The first three parts of the book cover the portion of WAS applying to all versions. The fourth part covers the Network Deployment version and its specific features. There is also an incredibly useful problem solving section.

While this is not a development book, the authors do highlight deployment decisions that should be made in the development phase and describe the ideal development/testing environment. Except for a few pages, the book is IDE neutral. However, WSAD users will find many things can be done on the IDE or the server.

In the week and a half I've had this book, I have used it as a reference many times. It has already helped me solve several problems. I only wish I had it sooner.

This is a good book of advanced WebSphere 5 configuration. It is good for reader should have experienced in WAS for a while. I love its Network Deployment segtions.

Anan

I bought this book in 2004. It really helped me to understand WebSphere and provides a source of "real world" guidelines and recommendations for how to deploy and configure all aspects of WebSphere 5.0x and WebSphere 5.1. It also focuses a great deal on the process of successfully deploying applications--a topic which I think is still largely overlooked today. I say overlooked because usually the granular issues of the deployment process never successfully reach the ears of the people buying, selling, and managing the WebSphere platform and leave a large hole for the development and admin team to fill. I'm personally glad for the personal and business opportunities this gap created for me and my company. We turn to this book time and again when working through tactical and strategic WebSphere questions and it always provides detailed insightful analysis which helps to inform and solidify out thinking.

All, that aside, this is the single most insightful and valuable book on WebSphere avaliable. Anybody remotely involved with WebSphere should own (read, and reread) without question.