Hi there! This comprehensive hands-on guide will walk you through setting up the powerful WebSphere Application Server 9.0.6 ND on Enterprise Linux…
A Brief History of WebSphere Application Server
First released in 1998, WebSphere Application Server (WAS) has been IBM‘s flagship middleware platform for building, deploying and managing Java EE applications for over 20 years now.
Over these two decades, WebSphere has seen wide adoption across banking, insurance, healthcare and other traditional enterprises for running mission-critical apps with high scalability, security and resiliency demands…
WebSphere Adoption and Industry Impact
According to IBM estimates, WebSphere powers over 30,000 enterprise applications and sees over 10 billion transactions per day!
It has over 30% market share, 4x more than runner ups JBoss and WebLogic as per Gartner‘s latest report.
These impressive stats speak volumes about WebSphere‘s real-world performance, scalability and capability to handle huge application workloads in complex IT environments – thanks to its mature code and sophisticated management capabilities…
WebSphere 9 Continues the Innovation Journey
The latest WebSphere 9 release ships with major enhancements:
- Java EE 8 & Jakarta EE 8 support
- Faster startup times – under a minute!
- Improved DevOps readiness and Docker integration
- Enriched APIs and monitoring capabilities
And the recent WebSphere 9.0.6 update brought key security fixes and hardening improvements as per IBM‘s release notes…
Let‘s look at WAS licensing and choosing the right installation package next!
Comparing WebSphere Editions and Licensing
WebSphere comes in three primary editions suited for diverse enterprise needs:
Base
The base edition has license tiers capped at 2 CPU cores. It offers development capabilities and basic administration features for running apps across a few standalone servers.
Network Deployment
ND scales vertically and horizontally across distributed topologies like clusters for high availability (HA) and failover. It enables advanced management of enterprise applications and workloads.
Liberty
A lightweight, modular runtime well-suited for hosting modern apps and microservices. Easy to embed in cloud-native pipelines.
You can consult the official editions comparison for more details…
And now, let‘s get you started with installing WAS ND!
Prerequisites for Installation
Before we install WebSphere, verify if your system meets the minimum software requirements:
Operating System Support
WAS 9.0.6 ND is fully certified on:
| OS | Versions |
|---|---|
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux | 7.x, 8.x |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server | 12.x 15.x |
| Ubuntu LTS | 16.04, 18.04, 20.04 |
Other Unix-like distributions may also work but aren‘t officially supported…
