SAN FRANCISCO — Red Hat and Sun Microsystems have
been trading verbal barbs of late. But, using each other’s strengths and
strategies, they’re preparing to duke it out in the middleware sector.
Red Hat announced Red Hat Application Server, its first Java-compatible server,
at LinuxWorld Monday. The company said it would test the server to
ensure interoperability with other J2EE
like BEA Systems , IBM
and Oracle
.
“We have decided to take a collaborative approach to software development
and not to take an antagonistic stance,” Red Hat’s President and CEO Matthew Szulik said
during the event.
While Red Hat has been preparing
for the Java app server since last September, with the beta debuting this past December,
some industry watchers suggest the software platform is not a
replacement for Red Hat’s bread and butter lineup.
“What this does is offer a department-level application server that is
pretty bare-bones,” Yankee Group Senior Analyst Dana Gardner told internetnews.com.
“It is not a fully integrated deployment platform.”
But instead of going directly to Sun for the Java code, Red Hat has gone
to the French-owned ObjectWeb Open Source initiative for its JOnAS (Java
Open Application Server) software. Red Hat’s new app server also supports
Axis from Apache; Tomcat in the form of JSPs and servlets; Jakarta Server Management using JMX;
messaging; clustering; Intel’s 32-bit Xeon it’s Itanium processors; and IBM’s Power PC chips.
Based on the J2EE specifications, the Application Server will put Red
Hat in direct competition with JBoss, as well as step on a few middleware toes at
Java-based application server leaders IBM, BEA Systems, Sun Microsystems and
Oracle.
The Sun side of the brewing turf war is also heating up at LinuxWorld, with its preview
of the inaugural Linux port of its Sun Ray Server Software 3.0.
The software now lets companies
host Sun Ray thin clients running on Novell’s SUSE Enterprise 8 or Red Hat
Linux 3.0 servers. Previously, Sun Ray systems were only available on
servers running the Solaris OS and SPARC semiconductors.
In addition to cross-platform support with Linux, other new Sun Ray features
include: regional hot desking; bandwidth enhancements; expanded
peripheral support; privacy mode; and LAN
capability.
“In terms of a product offering, the commitment is there,” John Fanelli,
Sun’s director of business management and product marketing for Java System Network Identity,
Communication and Portal Services, told internetnews.com.
“From a middleware perspective, we have challenges ahead, but we are
optimistic because of our value proposition. For example, iPlanet is moving
into the current Sun Java Systems.”
It was three years ago that Sun went public with its first low-cost Linux
server — the LX50, which has been discontinued. After shunning Red Hat back in the
boom times, the company has spent considerable time and effort trying to
convince the open source community of its assurance of hardware and software
support for Linux. Sun’s Linux-based desktop offerings are based on Red Hat.
“We haven’t done a good enough job showing how we’ve delivered from an
open source perspective and from a product perspective,” Fanelli said. “But
you would be hard pressed to find a company that supports open source on a
hardware and software level.
However, that doesn’t preclude Sun execs from taking a few pot shots at
its competition. During last month’s JavaOne show, Sun CEO Scott McNealy
called for Red Hat to contribute more of its open source code to the
community instead of profiting from it.
