The Trouble with Integration
By Michiel de Bruijn
IBM positions the latest incarnation of its WebSphere suite as a "total Web development platform." To prove that this is not just empty marketing hyperbole, they include an imposing stack of CDs in the box, containing a variety of development products that run on multiple platforms. You could argue that more is always better, but in this case, IBM should have provided a less confusing end-user experience. All together too often, the current installation process left me wondering exactly which products I should have been installing on which platform.
Even though you'll most likely use your existing Web server, you'll find both the IBM HTTP server—a derivative of Apache—and the Domino Go Web server in the CD set. On the other hand, a "desktop" (meaning "nonproduction") version of the DB2 database engine for Linux is included. However, the actual WebSphere application server and full versions of DB2 are supplied only for Windows and several non-Linux variants of Unix.
Although I'm sure you can eventually make the entire WebSphere suite run on the OS of your choice, this really shouldn't involve intervention from your local IBM sales or support team. For IBM's "multiplatform" claim to really stick, setup on, say, Linux or Solaris should be at least approximately as straightforward as it is when you develop and deploy on Windows. In a Windows environment, product selection and installation is as simple as locating the WebSphere Studio CD and running the master setup program.
Regardless of the platform, the first course of action during setup is installing IBM's DB2 database engine.
