First Thoughts: WebSphere 7.0 Beta

Posted by: Robert Reeves on

IBM has begun the WebSphere 7.0 Open Beta program. Here is a snippet from the email notice:

You may review the features and highlights on the Open Beta overview page at this URL:
https://www14.software.ibm.com/iwm/web/cc/earlyprograms/websphere/
wasndv7/

The Code and Library downloads may also be found at these URLs:
https://www14.software.ibm.com/iwm/web/cc/earlyprograms/websphere/
wasndv7/download.shtml
https://www14.software.ibm.com/iwm/web/cc/earlyprograms/websphere/
wasndv7/library.shtml

For support issues related to this Open Beta program, we have also provided a discussion forum, which you may access from this URL:
https://www14.software.ibm.com/iwm/web/cc/earlyprograms/websphere/
wasndv7/support.shtml

 

The first thing I noticed about this release is the VMWare images. IBM has included SuSe images with WAS 7 previously installed. Just download the images, point your VMWare Player or Server at them, and test drive WAS 7. (Hint: root password is ‘password’.) I hope this means that IBM will be releasing other WebSphere based applications as VMWare images for evaluation, such as WebSphere Portal.

After starting my standalone Profile and visiting the Admin Console, I was struck by how similar to the WAS 6.1 console the WAS 7.0 console is. There was quite a bit of change from WAS 5.1 to WAS 6.0 and some marginal change in WAS 6.1. But, it seems that WebSphere has stuck with the same layout. That’s very good news for companies that rely on manual deployment.

However, there is cause for concern. The following MBeans have been removed:

 

  • SIBJMSConnectionFactory
  • SIBJMSProvider
  • SIBJMSQueue
  • SIBJMSQueueConnectionFactory
  • SIBJMSTopic
  • SIBJMSTopicConnectionFactory

Of course, this might simply be an oversight that the Open Beta program is meant to address. Or, it appears the JMS aspects of the Service Information Bus have been removed.

We’ll do some sleuthing on our end to see where they went to. But, this marks a change in how IBM has done WebSphere releases in the past. In fact, they still have WAS 4.0 MBeans in WAS 7.0 (e.g., WAS40ConnectionPool, WAS40DataSource). Heck, they still have it in the Admin Console, too!


In WebSphere 7.0Open Beta Program

Comments (3)Add Comment
...
written by Kris, May 29, 2008
None of the links are working smilies/angry.gif
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ick
written by Jin Chun, May 29, 2008
i'm downloading the vms now, thanks for the heads up. But going to the the RAD beta, the test environment for WAS 7 spans 4 cd iso's, wtf? Anyway, any idea when this is going GA?
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Links seem to all work now, Try again.
written by Larry W., June 04, 2008
Links seem to all work now, Try again.
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