JBoss SOA Platform vs. Oracle GlassFish Server

JBoss Enterprise SOA Platform is great when you are looking at building more or less pure Java applications and SOA micro-services that may integrate with multiple external data sources. It is less useful when you are looking to build simple SOA applications that are simple in nature since the overhead associated with deploying as well as learning BPEL.

Incentivized

Glassfish is well suited for large-scale cluster deployments and integrates well with F5 load balancers.

Incentivized

• JBoss is open source so the cost overhead to deploy and build application is very low.
• JBoss Enterprise SOA Platform and its parent Redhat are reputed and well adapted in the industry so it is easy to find best practices documentation for complex deployments of JBoss middleware.

Incentivized

• The product offers Java EE support.
• As the version supported by Oracle we have an extensive documentation, the Oracle GlassFish server online documentation library, patches ,and support from the supplier.
• Ease of use through the administration console.
• Integration with the NetBeans development interface.

Incentivized

• JBoss Enterprise SOA Platform is dependent and build for JEE/Java application so using a different programming paradigm will be much harder.
• There is still a learning curve to get familiar with BPEL making it harder to get an SOA micro-service up and running compared to a fully cloud-based service

Incentivized

• One of the areas where we found Glassfish adaptation difficult for our company was the lack of documentation and community forums covering important issues.
• We ran into a roadblock with OAuth 2.0 implementation and did not get great support on that issue.

Incentivized

Redhat support generally is great and that is true for the JBoss Enterprise SOA Platform as well. Even if you do not buy support from Redhat, you can reply on the discussion board and bug fixes via the open-source JBoss without much trouble.

Incentivized

Oracle SOA Suite (Oracle BPM + Oracle BPEL + other components) and IBM WebSphere middleware is most costly and suited if you are already using applications and other middleware components from these vendors. Mulesoft (Salesforce Mule ESB) is best when you need deep integration with one of Salesforce's existing products. JBoss and Apache Web Server are best when you do not want to invest infant CapEx/OpEx on license fee. Apache Web Server based middleware is best for simple SOA applications.

Incentivized

At the time we did a small proof of concept with both platforms and Oracle Glassfish had more intuitive administration and configuration functions

Incentivized

• Positive impact on the business by being able to use existing Java/JEE expertise to build and deploy applications and business services.
• Positive ROI due to no license cost for JBoss Enterprise SOA.

Incentivized

• Glassfish which initially spun off from an Open Source project has a community edition which is free to use and offers great ROI.
• In comparison to cloud offerings like AWS and Google App Engine, Glassfish requires more cost upfront for installation and management.

Incentivized