Full GlassFish adoption questionnaire responses from Apologic's Frédéric Declée and Laurent Yhuel.
Date : November 2008
Can you tell us about the application, site, or service in which you have adopted GlassFish?
Apologic is a 20-year old Independent Software Vendor (ISV) company specializing in home care services and has been part of a larger group called Groupe Chèque Déjeuner since 2004. Other companies in the group such as Vocatio, Domatel, and Mutinfo provide training, hosting services, and more.
With more than ten Windows-based client/server products in the Apologic portfolio the company decided to rewrite them based on several key requirements: multi-platform, Open Source and deployed (and updated) via the web. Our new architecture is mainly based on the following technologies: Database, persistence (O/R mapping), Web Services, and a JavaWebStart-deployed rich Swing client. Having some basic Java knowledge with our Internet applications (java/struts/tomcat), we decided to invest more in Java.
The software or services (SaaS is one popular choice we offer) from Apologic revolve around multiple feature sets such as planning (optimization, hour billing, ...), customer care (CRM), electronic documents management, accounting, geo-localisation, mass (e)mailing, billing, and more.
How and when did you first find out about GlassFish?
We're been using NetBeans since version 5.0 and have been tracking GlassFish progress since it was the Java EE 5 application server that came with the tool. So it's been about two years since we first started using GlassFish.
Did you go through an evaluation process before selecting GlassFish? If so, can you tell us a little bit about the process and results?
Yes. We've tested the JBoss/Hibernate, JBoss/TopLink Essentials, GlassFish/Hibernate and GlassFish/TopLink Essentials combinations and found that the best possible solution for us was GlassFish/TopLink Essentials.
What specific version of GlassFish are you using?
We started off developing using beta versions of GlassFish v2 and went into production with the final and stable release of GlassFish v2.
On what operating system do you run GlassFish? Do you use the same OS for both development and production deployment?
We run GlassFish in production on Debian Linux servers. Our developers use Windows XP or Vista.
On what hardware platform do you run GlassFish? Do you use the same platform for both development and production deployment?
In production the servers are Nec Bi Xeon / 4 GB RAM / SAS DD.
Development is done on dual core / 2 GB RAM / SATA DD.
What specific features or modules of GlassFish are you using?
The key features are JPA (TopLink essentials) and JAX-WS (Metro).
Have you purchased a GlassFish subscription?
We are working with Sun Microsystems to setup both an appropriate GlassFish support channel as well as training for a larger part of the team. It was clearly an important criteria to be able to have support and consulting from the vendor.
What do you like most about GlassFish?
Performance and support.
What would you most like to see improved in GlassFish?
It seems that GlassFish v3 will answer my main requirements: modularity and PHP support.
Are you using any open source or commercial frameworks or tools in your application?
Does your application use a database? If so, which one?
Yes, we use Postgresql for its performance and robustness. Postgres helps us handle millions of records without any problems.
How has GlassFish performed since your application went live? Have you run into any production issues which you would attribute to GlassFish?
No issue whatsoever. GlassFish has been stable and performing well. We have about 150 customers using the application without an escalation.
How would your describe your participation in the GlassFish project?
Submitter of bug.
Is there anything else you think would be of interest in a story about your GlassFish adoption?
The use of GlassFish has us using just about every application layer provided by Sun: Java 6 / NetBeans / GlassFish / JPA / JAX WS (Metro). This has allowed us to build a solid new architecture in record time. GlassFish v3 looks very promising and we'll likely use it to replace our Tomcat servers to achieve a homogenous production environment.
Thanks Frédéric and Laurent for sharing this with the rest of the GlassFish community!