Is iPlanet a good App Server

[kkyim]

Can anyone tell me why I should use iPlanet instead of other market competitors such as 9iAS, WebSphere or Weblogic?
Thanks

[Mike Curwen]

I can think of no good reason.

In almost any area you care to measure, iPlanet is currently NOT the leader.

Technical merit, speed, reliability, market share, mind share. iPlanet is never ahead of either Weblogic or Websphere. In some cases it is behind JBoss.

The only advantage you *might* perceive, is if you are already a Sun/Solaris shop, you've bought Sun's hardware for years, you have iplanet web server (which is a pretty darn good product) and you buy into the thinking "well.. all things Sun are good"

Remember that Sun 'inherited' the app server from Sun/Netscape alliance. They have currently brought iPlanet in from the cold, and are not really selling it until the next version (6.5) is ready for prime time.

I'm hoping this version will be a signifigant improvement. I'm hoping their documentation will be better. I'm hoping their support will be little more than lip service. I'm hoping I won't need support quite as much. I'm hoping they are standards-compliant, and that there are not quite so many 'known issues' and 'bugs'.

Here's hoping.

[raj sekhar]

Well, at JavaOne iPlanet stall, they were hinting at version 7.0 which is planned with many features, get away with the old NAS way of doing things(like in registries etc..) and they too were very 'hopeful' of release 7.0
my $0.02.

[Gerry Giese]

The iPlanet app server (or Sun ONE App Server or whatever they're going to finally call it) in the 6.0 incarnation has a lot of bugs. 6.5 just came out and supposedly is fixing a lot of stuff, but it's still the same codebase inherited from Kiva and Netscape. As it stands, iPlanet is not a bad server, but it's not a great one, either.
The newest version (7.0?) could potentially be good, but I would wait for 7.1 or 7.0 SP1 or whatever the first maintenance release is before even trying it since it will really be a 1.0 product and not be mature. I'm not convinced yet that Sun can write a truly good commercial piece of software on it's own and have it be good on the first go-round.
Java has been a success story, but Sun didn't intend it to be at first. Solaris is a good operating system. But most of the other software I'm familiar with, such as Forte for Java, StarOffice, and iPlanet server software have been written by others and bought or borrowed by Sun.
Anyway, if you go with iPlanet you'll be ok, but go in with your eyes wide open and make sure you get a maintenance contract to get free upgrades.
Supposedly Oracle 9iAS is good, but I have my doubts about Oracle as well. They make a good core database but my experience with anything outside of that has been decidedly mixed. Weblogic and Websphere have a lot of market share because they're good solid products, and the full weight of the companies are behind them 100% as core products. Macromedia JRun is worth looking at. The new ColdFusion Neo is actually going to be implemented on top of JRun in J2EE (Coldfusion tags actually parsed by a JSP-like templating engine), so that's worth a look-see since you could use CF and J2EE at the same time in the same app.
I would also look at HP-AS app server - free! You pay for a deluxe version with more features and support, but the free version is full J2EE compliant. Another to keep an eye on is Pramati.
Just to finish answering your question, kkyim, I use iPlanet every day and it works. I don't know that it really has any distinguishing characteristics besides being owned by Sun. It is quite expensive, though. Don't leave it off your evaluation list, but it's not likely going to be a front-runner to win the election.