Open Source - Limitations.

[Patrick Finnegan]

I would say the major limitation of open source solutions is that they are not appropriate for clustered server environments and they don't scale well. For example Tomcat does not support transaction failover in a clustered environment and cannot load balance between servers(i.e it's not possible to deploy one instance of Tomcat across multiple servers). It's suitable for development environments or non critical applications where the system owners are not concerned with 24*7 availability or scalability. That excludes most corporates.

Most of the proprietary software development tools are tightly integrated with the application server e.g WSAD/WebSphere, AppDev Studio/SAS). Most corporates will opt for a tightly integrated package to improve developer productivity. For example they are unlikely to choose JBuilder/WebSphere over WSAD/WebSphere. Of course it's possible build applications using Eclipse/Ant and then deploy to WebSphere but it's a lot harder.

[Christopher Judd]

the major limitation of open source solutions is that they are not appropriate for clustered server environments and they don't scale well.

Funny you should give the example of Tomcat because I thought it was the web container built into WSAD and I know it is the web container in Borland App Server. If you want clustering and open source you might want to look at JBoss.

it's possible build applications using Eclipse/Ant and then deploy to WebSphere but it's a lot harder.

I disagree that it is harder. But there are some really good reasons why in a large team you should have a ANT script for building your project even if you are using WSAD and WAS. An ANT script provides a repeatable and automatable process (continues integration). It also enables large teams to have a designated build master who does not need an expensive WSAD license just to run a build.

[Mel Riffe]

Someone has blogged about this: http://jroller.com/page/carlossg/20041104#tomcat_in_high_volume_sites

I don't know if the papers address your concerns. I have not read them. But it appears they hold some promise.

- Mel