It is now possible to simply install and configure WebSphere� Application Server for multiple systems. Simplify installing GA code, refresh packs, fix packs and interim fixes, as well as creating/configuring artifacts and deploying applications. All of these steps can take precious time that could be spent focusing on your core business.

…No actually, working around the misimplemented or missing features in WAS V6 takes precious time that could be spent focusing on my core business.

When was the last time IBM did anything that let me “focus on my core business”, instead of wrestling with their dumb, broken and buggy fucking malware?! IBM has only ever done sweet FUCK ALL to make my life easier. When they chose not to support WAS V5 on Solaris 10, thus forcing me into upgrading both OS and application, was that making my life easier? Not really, no. What we have here is IBM focusing on their core business of gouging the customer and ruining the lives of the poor bloody bastards that have to maintain their LOUSY PIECE OF SHIT “solutions”. Join me for a brief stumble over the broken glass and dog shit lining the grimy avenue of WAS V6…

First of all, IBM have actually removed functionality from the base product. Yes, while everyone else releases new versions of their software to add features, IBM take stuff away! The administration console in WAS V6 base can no longer create or manage additional app servers, only the default ‘server1’ instance. We’re sorry, were you using that facility? Never mind, there’s always our fucking nutso command line scripting language instead! We haven’t fully documented it but here’s some example code:

$AdminConned utterLoadofCock /Node:node/Server:myserver/Fruit:bananas,*/
- attribute {topping=custard.yellow,skin=tough}/ -option {{ { $foobar scurvy }
{{ needs more brackets }} [ what ] / the / (hell) {is} {{{}{this}}} ///garbage,*/// } }}

Ooh thanks, I feel e-nabled!

Then there’s the allegedly clever new profiles feature, which replaces “instances” in V5. IBM have separated the static parts of WAS - binaries, libraries, etc. - from the dynamic files such as logs and configs. You can create multiple “profiles”, representing executable instances of WAS, from the same installation and thus upgrade the product for all of them at once. Which would ordinarily be sensible design, except that WAS stores the details of all the profiles you create…in the static product directory tree. So if you want to say, mount the product tree read-only for security and then create a profile from it (perhaps because you’re implementing my Solaris Containers scheme), it won’t work. A bit more thought might have put this data under a writeable filesystem like /var (just as IBM’s DB2 does with its instance data, in fact), but brains are clearly already at a premium in the WebSphere development team.

There’s bound to be more, but I haven’t yet summoned the strength to press on. Early evidence suggests that approximately zero or fewer of my previous issues with this piece of crap have been addressed. I hope I don’t happen to catch one of their irritating e-business adverts in the coming months, because I could do without the added expense of buying a new telly as well.

Obviously, I’ve had my criticisms of IBM in the past but those were, I feel, fair and balanced, based mainly on the merits or otherwise of their products. But now I’ve had it with being professional and articulate. So this time, I’d just like to say this to IBM:

you
suck