Insider Weekly
iSeries shops embrace the Web in 2003
By Sarah Kimmel
Monday, March 03, 2003
For years, IBM has been touting
the iSeries as a viable Web server. In 2003, iSeries shops finally
see eye-to-eye with Big Blue, finds a recent Insider survey of AS/400
professionals.
“We have been using
our iSeries as a Web server for about a year, predominantly to run
our Intranet. We made this decision for three reasons: We have in-house
expertise, it was affordable because we had extra capacity on our
box and WebSphere Standard Edition 3.5 was free, and our Content
Management vendor made us a great offer to run their package on
the iSeries,” says Johnny Musser, IS manager, Alameda County
Water District, Freemont, CA.
Musser is not alone. The
number of shops using their iSeries as a Web server has jumped in
the past year, from 39% in February 2002 to 53% today.
Application server use
is also up in 2003. While 32% of shops surveyed will run WebSphere
Application server (down from 34% in 2002), 25% are planning to
run the pared-down version, WebSphere Express (see box, below).
|
iSeries Web skills in 2003
| iSeries Web skills needed
|
Percent of shops need
in 2002 |
Percent of shops need
in 2003 |
| WebFacing Tool |
N/A
|
39%
|
| Java with JDBC |
33%
|
31%
|
| Java
with servlets and EJBs |
32%
|
31%
|
| WebSphere Commerce Suite
|
22%
|
28%
|
| JavaScript
|
29%
|
27%
|
| CGI with RPG, Net.Data
|
28%
|
26%
|
| Domino
for iSeries |
27%
|
22%
|
| |
|
|
| Emerging technology |
Percent of
shops using in 2002 |
Percent of
shops using
in 2003 |
| WebSphere Development
Studio |
43%
|
44%
|
| WebSphere Application Server |
35%
|
32%
|
| Apache HTTP server |
22%
|
31%
|
| XML |
34%
|
27%
|
| WebSphere Express |
N/A
|
25%
|
| Linux |
12%
|
14%
|
| MQ Series |
15%
|
13%
|
| Jakarta Tomcat |
7%
|
11%
|
Note: N=317 (2002), N=416
(2003).
Percentages will not add up to 100% because shops can submit
multiple answers.
|
Even though IBM is pulling
their focus away from Jakarta TomCat, their customers are not. 11%
of customers plan to use TomCat in 2003, up from 7% in 2002.
Shops look to WebFace apps in 2003
Dominating the list of Web
skills that are needed by iSeries shops in 2003 is IBM’s WebFacing
tool, with 39% of respondents reporting a need for more education
in that area. The increased interest in learning WebFacing skills
is attributed to both the need to bring a fresh look and feel to
older applications and the difficulty some shops are having in getting
started.
“We are just starting
to use the WebFacing tool to convert some of our older applications.
However, we had a rough time getting it up and running because there
is conflicting documentation out there,” says Cindy Roach,
systems analyst, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI.
IBM’s HTTP Server
Powered by Apache is also experiencing a peak in popularity in 2003,
with 31% of respondents reporting its use, up from 22% last year.
Apart from the increased
interest in IBM’s WebFacing tool and the newer generation of
HTTP server, the use and need for development tools and languages
that aid the move to the Web is either stagnant or dropping. Emerging
technologies such as XML, WebSphere Application Server, and MQ Series
saw a drop in interest in 2003. XML saw a steep decline in use,
from 34% to 27% in the past year, and MQ Series dropped from 15%
to 13%.
“XML was in our education
plan last year, but we found that we didn’t have a use for
it and straight EDI is working quite well,” says Dan Dybwad,
vice president of information technology, GFG Division, US Food
Service, Grand Forks, ND.
iSeries still slow to warm up to Linux
Other emerging tools and
technologies that shops will use in 2003 include Linux, which has
grown modestly from 12% to 14% year to year. However, the number
of iSeries customers that report running this open-source operating
system in their shop has grown more significantly, from 21% in 2002
to 30% in 2003.
For more information, see
box. Stay tuned for future articles as Insider Weekly continues
to bring you reports on the latest market trends.
Categories: Web
| WebSphere Application Server | Management/Financial
Strategy
|
