On my current project, we need to use a free
EJB server, since we can't afford a commercial one (we may be able to afford JRun). I'm am looking for advice, warnings, suggestions, bribes, or anything else which would influence our decision.
Our needs:
We're running a trading simulation. It will have at most 200-300 people, but probably with no more then 100-120 active at any one time. We won't be using any really tricky features in J2EE, but will rely on the basics, especially in the areas of EJB, JMS, and JavaMail.
Here's what I'm looking at:
JBoss This is the most well known. They've been around, they're reliable. They include extra features. Unfortunately, it's not free. JBoss is a service company. I can get the JBoss server for free, but if I want to use it, at a minimum I must spend $100 for their book. If that's the only cost, I don't mind it. How good is the book? Given that I already understand EJBs and some other J2EE APIs, will I be able to work with JBoss using just the book, or will I find I need to buy more things from them? Does JBoss have any good GUI management tools? I wouldn't expect it from an open source product, but since they seem to be throwing in extras, maybe they have it.
OpenEJB
This seems to be a small team, and relatively new. They haven't reached a stable version yet. However, the authors of the software have a good reputation, and have published books on the subject.
JOnAS
I know almost nothing about them.
Enhydra
Does this even support EJBs? I thought it did, but it talks mostly about
Servlet's and JSPs.
Sun's Reference Implamentation
They say RI's aren't useful for development work. I'm under the impression that this is just because RI's don't try to be efficent. It all lacks bells and whistles making setup and management easier. Is that enough reason not to use it? Any other reason not to use it?
Sun ONE J2EE App Server
Sun is apparently giving this away free on all major platforms (or claim they will be this fall--waiting for them to actually do it could be an issue if it's not out yet). Is this different from the RI? Is it good? Does it have some nice bells and whistles, or at least enough that it's not a total pain in the ass to setup and maintain.?
JRun
This is arelatively cheap. I hear it's not as powerful as some of the big names, but then, I don't think we need all that power. Does anyone have any experience with JRun? What are it's strengths and weakenesses?
I appreciate any help. Thanks.
--Mark