IBM WebSphere Hybrid Edition vs. Mirantis Kubernetes Engine

IBM WebSphere Hybrid edition is well-suited for the development and deployment of large enterprise-level applications such as Electronic Health Records that are used in our organization. IBM WebSphere is appropriate for organizations that require strong security and compliance as it provides a high level of security and compliance features. This works well with organizations that are subject to strict regulatory requirements, such as hospitals.

Incentivized

Docker is great for when you would want to use a VM for any given application, but don't need the overhead of the whole OS. Docker containers use very little computing resources, boot up very quickly, and are very easy to set up. An instance where Docker may not be appropriate would be for an application that requires good security. If in this situation, a true VM would probably be your best bet.

Incentivized

• It works out of the box. Its basic functionality is all there and everything works with no adjustments.
• The functionality is there for fine tuning, to allow applications to be easier to access and quicker with some tweaks, but again, these aren't necessary for basic running.

Incentivized

• Containerization - allowing multiple micro-services to function together without in-depth orchestration at the VM level.
• Rapid deployment - a developer with appropriate access can simply push to the correct remote and the deploy happens automatically from there
• Decouples provisioning from VM administration - allows containers to be deployed (more) regardless of VM set up.

Incentivized

• In this era of cloud technology, Websphere Application Server required Integration with cloud technology.
• Troubleshooting tools need to included in Websphere Application Server package for better troubleshooting of issues.
• Websphere Application Server comes with some basic performance tools and these troubleshooting and performance tools need to be enhanced.
• It's available in all operating systems like Windows AIX Unix Solaris Zos etc.

Incentivized

• Docker has a bit of a learning curve, and it takes some time to become familiar with the tooling and syntax. Transitioning an existing architecture to docker can represent a significant investment.
• Docker attempts to provide some level of cross-host container orchestration via swarm, but it falls short of third-party solutions like kubernetes.
• We occasionally run into stability issues when the docker daemon is subjected to high load (many applications starting/stopping frequently). In these cases, docker hangs and we have to restart or replace the node.

Incentivized

Mostly we will be renewing unless the strategic direction changes drastically or there are other complelling external circumstances. We've been on a multi year project to modernize our legacy applications and that effort will continue for the foreseeable future.

Incentivized

WebSphere Application Server is used across our organization. Most projects use this for Java products and applications. Being robust and scalable makes it even more usable. We love using WebSphere Application Server due to its configuration management ability made simple and vast across all java related parameters. It is dependent on the features and upgrades and IBM releases some great upgrades to WebSphere Application Server.

Incentivized

Docker's CLI has a lot of options, and they aren't all intuitive. And there are so many tools in the space (Docker Compose, Docker Swarm, etc) that have their own configuration as well. So while there is a lot to learn, most concepts transfer easily and can be learned once and applied across everything.

Incentivized

Deploys fairly quick enough and like the roll-out update feature decreasing the downtime and also plays well with other integration tools as well.

Incentivized

IBM was quick to respond when we had an issue with our specific infrastructure. We raised a PMR, which they picked up quickly and updated us about every step of the way. We had an appropriate fix for quite a business critical issue within a fortnight, which was impressive!

Incentivized

The community support for Docker is fantastic. There is almost always an answer for any issue I might encounter day-to-day, either on Stack Overflow, a helpful blog post, or the community Slack workspace. I've never come across a problem that I was unable to solve via some searching around in the community.

Incentivized

I did not choose IBM WAS, it was a coporate decision. We are glad that we have been using this for a number of years and are quite happy as a corporation. However, it does take more time to learn WAS because of its complexity in terms of installation, various features and special deployment and packaging needs.

Incentivized

I have not used any other software as a container management solution. Its containerized apps allow the usage of less memory, thus
they start and shut down very fast. This tool is helping the enterprise
software to work quickly against the changing conditions thus offers great
scaling by simultaneously allowing me to meet the demands, which also leads to
easy implementation of the strategies.

Incentivized

• It has security features that has enhanced security of our enterprise and its data.
• WebSphere Hybrid Edition has improved performance making it easier for our organization to fix any problem that might occur.
• It has improved collaboration enhancing team work making the work efficient.
• WebSphere Hybrid Edition can be complex to individuals who are not familiar with it.

Incentivized

• We are able to try things very quickly compared to before. If you need to debug it, changes on X/Y/Z will have an impact on the way your app works, and changing libraries or configurations of the environment easily can improve your development cycles.
• In case someone new arrives, the onboarding is pretty easy thanks to Docker. We have tried many configs and images until we reached a point were we have what we want. We don't have to painfully do that again for every new user. We just send him the image.

Incentivized