The developerWorks WebSphere site is a collection of technical resources for developers, administrators, business planners, and other technical personnel who want to learn how to exploit the many features of the WebSphere platform and tooling. The site is updated weekly with the latest WebSphere related events, product announcements, and includes new additions to the extensive collection of articles, tutorials, code samples, roadmaps, and other technical materials.
WebSphere is IBM's integration software platform. It includes the entire middleware infrastructure
-- such as servers, services, and tools--needed to write, run, and monitor 24x7 industrial-strength,
on demand Web applications and cross-platform, cross-product solutions.
WebSphere provides reliable, flexible, and robust integration software.
WebSphere Application Server is the base for the infrastructure; everything else runs on top of it. It supports SOA and non-SOA environments.
WebSphere Process Server, which is based on WebSphere Application Server, and
WebSphere Enterprise Service Bus, provide the foundation for service-oriented architected (SOA),
modular applications. Collectively, they support the use of business rules to drive applications that support business processes.
High performance environments also use
WebSphere Extended Deployment as part of their base infrastructure.
Other WebSphere products provide a wide variety of additional services, as described below.
CICS Transaction Server is the base for most mainframe applications today and supports the development of applications in popular languages such as COBOL, PL/I, C/C++ and Java.
WebSphere is a modular platform based on industry supported open standards. You can plug your existing
assets into WebSphere using trusted and enduring interfaces, and you can continue to extend your environment
as your needs grow. WebSphere runs on many platforms including AIX, HP Unix, i5/OS, Linux, Sun Solaris, Windows, and z/OS.
To learn how WebSphere contributes to an SOA environment see WebSphere and SOA.
An on demand business is one whose business processes -- integrated end-to-end across the company
and with key partners, suppliers, and customers -- can respond with speed to any customer demand, market
opportunity, or external threat. You can use WebSphere to build and monitor an infrastructure to support
your on demand business, and to build and extend applications that run on that infrastructure.
People integration capabilities enable customers, employees, and business partners to interact with business information, applications, and business processes, at any time from anywhere. For example, using
these capabilities, you could automate your call center functions, and then authorize selected employees,
customers, and business partners to access these functions from their personal computers, cell phones, and
PDAs.
These WebSphere products provide people integration (or interaction) capabilities:
Businesses can use the Process integration capabilities to model, choreograph, monitor, and optimize
business processes to keep them in line with strategic business goals. For example, you could model
a key business process, then simulate it, refine it, enable people to interact with it in convenient ways,
put it into production, monitor it, fine-tune it, and then--quickly and intelligently adapt it,
when your business needs change.
These WebSphere products provide process integration capabilities:
Information integration capabilities let you create a consistent, unified view of structured and
unstructured information from disparate sources, and to manage and synchronize product reference information.
For example, you could create a free-form search across all your information assets, including Web sites,
relational databases, file systems, newsgroups, portals, collaboration systems, and content management
systems.
These WebSphere products provide information integration capabilities:
The application integration capabilities provide a wide variety of services to support reliable and
flexible flow of information across applications, which could be running in different enterprises.
For example, you could simply exchange messages between two applications, or, if your business needs
are more involved, you could create a flexible, service oriented architecture to support systematic
information exchange across a wide variety of applications running on different company servers, platforms,
and in multiple languages.
Some of the WebSphere products which provide application integration capabilities are:
The WebSphere application infrastructure enables you to build, deploy, integrate, and enhance new and existing applications. For example, you can Web-enable and extend legacy applications, and enable them to run in a
Java environment.
These WebSphere products provide application infrastructure capabilities:
To jump start your application, you can use one of the accelerators. These pre-built solutions can offset lack of experience or expertise in certain areas, and ensure a firm foundation for future expansion.
How you work with WebSphere depends on your role in the business. IBM provides extensive tools and
facilities to help you build, run, manage, and optimize your WebSphere applications.
WebSphere tooling is based on industry open standards such J2EE and Eclipse, and they use common
installation, administration, security, and programming models.
If you are an administrator who manages the infrastructure, you use administrative tools
such as those provided with the core product,
WebSphere Application Server.
Figure 2 shows the WebSphere integration reference architecture, along with some examples of
WebSphere products that work together to provide the various services, which in turn, provide the
capabilities described above (shown in Figure 1).
WebSphere Portal
includes a runtime server, services, tools, and many other features to integrate your enterprise into a
single, customizable user interface called a portal.
WebSphere Everyplace (also known as Wireless on WebSphere) products help you build and run applications, including portals, which your users can access using
their choice of mobile devices.
WebSphere Information Integrator
provides data capabilities such as federation, transformation, caching, replication, and event publishing,
as well as enterprise search.
WebSphere
Business Monitor
helps you to track performance measures and to monitor your business processes using role-based dashboards.
Bookmark and visit the developerWorks WebSphere
site to learn more about the WebSphere platform and tooling,
whether you a new user of WebSphere products, or an expert. It is updated weekly with the latest WebSphere
related events, product announcements, and includes new additions to the extensive collection of technical
materials.
Products
lists and links to the major product families and the key products in the WebSphere brand.
Downloads
provides trial copies of many of the WebSphere products.
Technical library
includes an ever-growing collection of technical articles, samples, tutorials, and other materials,
developed by WebSphere experts.
Training
includes WebSphere classroom courses, online education, and self-study materials.
Support
provides solutions to, and information about, technical questions.
Services
leads you to experts who can help you architect, implement, and monitor software applications.
Forums and community
helps you locate and interact with other WebSphere product users.
Some other key resources you can access from developerWorks WebSphere include:
The WebSphere Technical Journal
published 10 times each year, includes deep technical information from some of WebSphere's most
highly respected authorities.
Meet the Experts
lets you submit questions and get answers related to a variety of WebSphere topics.
