Hi there,
Let me explain a few things to you that some others have replied to as well.
My company is a small startup (not mine..the company i work for) and we too
have been for many months talking about various app servers. I started
working with Orion in its .7+ stage..long before we started discussing the
use of an app server. Actually..I started using Orion to hopefully replace
our IIS/JRUN solution which badly sucks! Thats another story. None the less,
we hired a CTO, a knowledgeable businessman with some technical experience
behind him. We decided since we were using Servlets to go with an app
server, instead of something like IIS/MTS (I would have left the company if
we went that direction..I can tell you from experience it is no where near
as scalable as an app server, nor not even close as easy to write code for).
I put up Orion right away, even though it was not released yet..it was VERY
stable and much faster than IIS/JRUN (7 times faster on static JSP page
return..and that was not under a load..JRUN would crumble under a load (JRUN
2.3+..not sure about the new 3.0 version) ). It got shot down simply because
our "big boys" felt they were too small of a company to rely on being around
in a couple of years. Despite the fact that I already had our site running
on it (not production..but on my local box) and it was extremely easy to
configure, they put WebLogic, WebSphere and Oracle App Server on the
list..that was it. Even though Orion is several times faster than WebLogic,
we would rather spend $150k on WebLogic (cluster..$15K per cpu per server)
than $10K on Orion to do the same thing..yet better. Go figure. Apparently
here we feel that developers will see that we use WebLogic and want to come
work for us. I tried to explain that what we really want to promote is J2EE
development since if you can develop for J2EE it really doesn't matter much
what app server.
None the less, let me tell you what I think about all of this. I have used
Orion for a while now. I also have used IIS/JRUN, Resin, Weblogic and have
seen SilverStream in action. We have chosen WebLogic (for the reasons I
explained above..and that our board members like to see us using a big-name
app server). However, if your company allows you to, Orion is quite a bit
nicer in many ways. The only thing I like about WebLogic is that it owns
WebGain, which distributes a nice development IDE integrated. Visual Cafe 4
integrates with WebLogic server (right now..more will be added for EJB
deployment, etc). It also works nicely with the DreamWeaver 3 which is JSP
1.1 aware (taglibs, javabean drag/drop, etc). Their StructureBuilder is
integrated, and the EJB deployment into the local copy of WebLogic is
seamless. That is the one thing Orion lacks..which quite frankly I could
care less because it does package simple to use GUI tools for packaging web
apps, ejbs, ears, jars, and deployment of them. Quite frankly, if Forte for
Java would fix a few things to make life a bit easier, I would use that free
tool, along with Orion for all my needs. mySql is a nice database for free
which does the job for the most part. So you can almost set up a full blown
enterprise solution for under $3000.
Anyways..I got a meeting to go to. If you can..go with Orion. I say this
from experience..not because I am promoting the product. Its easy to set up,
easy to use, VERY stable and by far the fastest, along with pretty easy
clustering setup.
Feel free to ask questions.
