Full GlassFish adoption questionnaire responses from Webzzle's Xavier Vaucois.
Date : April 2009
Can you tell us about the application, site, or service in which you have adopted GlassFish?
Webzzle enables you to explore the knowledge Web in 1-Click and get Webzzle & Wikipedia quality results followed by enhanced Google results. Webzzle helps users make a better use of Wikipedia & Google.
Why do we need a 1-Click Web Explorer ? From a Web page, how do I find similar information on the Web ?
Most of the time, from Google, we reach Wikipedia. But from there, how to get back to the Web & find relevant information ?
Everyday, we use many keywords searches to find a single information. Why?
We lack the best results most of the time without knowing it and we have too much information to read, so we need to explore in 1-Click and avoid the use of keywords that mislead results.
Why do we provide better results ?
From Wikipedia, we use concepts and external links saved and qualified by 8.5 millions people. From Google, we replace a simple keywords search by multiple complex queries mixing Wikipedia concepts, pages contents and syntax operators. We sort and rank the results to help users access the best results. Like this, they have less, but more qualified, information to read.
With Webzzle, Wikipedia contributors can add many more relevant external links to a Wikipedia page.
How and when did you first find out about GlassFish?
From 2001 until 2005, in our first startup, we were running many applications on Sun Application Server 8.2. We heard about the GlassFish project at that time.
Did you go through an evaluation process before selecting GlassFish?
We tested several other J2EE Application servers among WebLogic and JBOSS. We setup our application on many identical environments and decided to run Webzzle on Glassfish based on performance results.
Moreover, we share the open source spirit.
What specific version of GlassFish are you using?
We are using the GlassFish v2.1.
On what operating system do you run GlassFish? Do you use the same OS for both development and production deployment?
We run Glassfish on Solaris 10 & ZFS Server. We develop under Ubuntu 8.1, Windows XP and Windows Vista.
On what hardware platform do you run GlassFish?
In production, we run Glassfish on several rack servers (Sun X4100 AMD Quad core Opteron 2.6Ghz, RAM 8GB & Serenade AMD Opteron)
We use laptops for development.
Have you purchased a GlassFish subscription?
Not yet. We plan to do so very soon depending on the future success of Webzzle.
What specific features or modules of GlassFish are you using?
We use GlassFish in the cluster mode thanks to Node Agent architecture without any specific administration tools. We also use the MySQL JDBC connection without issue.
Are you using OpenMQ?
No.
What do you like most about GlassFish?
Open source, high quality, very good specs and above all no major issue in our case.
What would you most like to see improved in GlassFish?
So far, it is great. Easy to install, easy to manage. We did not encounter any issue. We are now working on response-time improvement.
Are you using any open source or commercial frameworks or tools in your application?
• Framework : Struts, Spring, Hibernate, Yahoo API, Google API, Jmaki 1.8, Tapestry,
• Tools : Netbeans 6.5 and Eclipse, Maven
• Database : MySQL 5.1
• Web Server : Sun Web Server 7.0
Does your application use a database? If so, which one?
MySQL 5.1.
We are working on a High Availability database environment with the help of Sun.
How has GlassFish performed since your application went live? Have you run into any production issues which you would attribute to GlassFish?
Very good. 100% availability, no issue.
Are there any figures about the scale of your adoption which you would like to share?
So far, the trafic is quite low (10 000 to 50 000 users per month). We were focused on usage and features before commmunicating. Now, we want to share Webzzle with the tech community and with Wikipedia users. Many people believe Webzzle can be one of the top destination on Internet because it enables people to explore the Web from the URL they are at with a single click and get more knowledge. Webzzle is also one opportunity to build the semantic Web on top of Wikipedia and required 10 years of hard work. We started in 1999. We use about 10 powerful servers. Two links :
• Sun Open Source Technology Helps Web 2.0 Companies Deliver Rich User Experiences
• Webzzle (General Internet Company) Selects Sun Microsystems to Enhance “1-Click Web Explorer” on Top of Wikipedia (English) for Expanding User-Base Worldwide and Accommodate Meteoric Growth
Anything else you'd like to add?
Check out our new Firefox plugin. This is the best way to use Webzzle!
Do not hesitate to contact us, tell us what's good with Webzzle, what's wrong and so on...!