[LONG] Comments inline...

On Thursday 19 Jun 2008, Sandip Bhattacharya wrote:
> +++ Andrew Michael Lynn [19/06/08 14:26 +0530]:
> >Requirements: Collaboration, Content-management, an Open Lab
> > note-book, project management and workflow
> >
> >1. OS
> >Solaris
> >Enterprise Linux
>
> Is commercial support from Redhat/Sun going to be bought? If not,
> then Debian would be a good rock solid alternative too. Freebsd would
> be as good too.
>
> Business angle:
> Solaris/Opensolaris vs. Linux:
> 1. How expensive is paid tech support?
> 2. How much support is typically needed in any of these options.
> 3. How much difficult is it to get admins for these options? And
> retain them?
> 4. As a consequence, how easy is it to get good documentation? And
> good community support?

I'd add:

5. How easy is it to get the target software for the target platform?  
Do the products you are selecting have a large installed base on the OS 
you select?  Are any of them certified?

> >2. Application server
> >GlassFish
> >JBOSS
> >Apache Tomcat
> >Apache
>
> Is the Tomcat/Jboss java stack being looked at only because of the
> JBPM workflow tool below? By going in for a Java based stack has
> multiple effects, technical as well as business wise:
> 1. Your hardware requirements increase dramatically.
> 2. Your LAMP options reduce dramatically. There is no sense running a
>     LAMP application running on a machine running a Tomcat instance
> which is heavily used.
> 3. The business aspect - how easy is it to get Java talent from the
>     market place and retain them as compared to LAMP? Whatever
> application you spend your valuable money on, will lock you into the
> platform that you choose. You can port between Unix OS, but you can't
> between languages later without significant investments. Are you
> willing in going that path?

I believe that if we're looking at a portal there is only one technology 
that offers a standards-compliant, flexible product and that is the 
Java Portal Standard.  The beauty of a Java Portal is that you can code 
in any language and have your application appear in the portal, and you 
can consume services from any standards-compliant portlet on the 
Internet.

I'm a bit wary of the Perl/PHP/Python based CMS/Portal combos, primarily 
because (a) there is no standard and (b) you are more or less tied into 
the language of the application itself.  Once you choose, say, Plone, 
you are tied to Plone's vagaries, its language, its limitations.  OTOH 
if you choose a standards-compliant Portal system you can (in 
principle) replace one Portal system with another with no or minimal 
porting.  Similarly, you start off with JBoss application server and 
later find it doesn't meet your needs.  No problems, switch to any 
other application server on any other platform with minimal headache 
and downtime.  None of the LAMP CMS/portals offers that kind of 
flexibility.

> >3. Portal Engine
> >Sun Open Portal
> >LifeRay
> >
> >Note: Most users/developers of computational biology applications
> >web-enable their applications using a LAMP stack. Q: Can similar
> > portal functionalities be provided by Joomla/Drupal/etc  ?
>
> Yes, You should also consider FOSS options like Plone, Typo3 which
> has workflow login built in.

Umm, that's really, really basic workflow.  jBPM (or any 
enterprise-grade workflow engine) can give you infinitely customisable 
workflows.  Of course, in this case I'm not sure what level of 
workflows we need.

Damn, I never thought I'd be the one promoting a Java solution in a 
public forum!

Regards,

-- Raju
-- 
Raj Mathur                [EMAIL PROTECTED]      http://kandalaya.org/
       GPG: 78D4 FC67 367F 40E2 0DD5  0FEF C968 D0EF CC68 D17F
PsyTrance & Chill: http://schizoid.in/   ||   It is the mind that moves

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