I've been pricing out J2EE/Websphere Enterprise 5.1 + Oracle solutions and I've come to the conclusion they are going to die. Not now - but 5-8 years out. Microsoft will drive the stake through their overpriced hearts.
Lets have a look at pricing. Note the big difference isn't between AIX/Solaris vs Windows its in the middleware and db. Note this solution is without failover and DR. Multiply by 2.5 for Disaster Recovery. These are all CDN prices and include vendor discounts - so deduct 20% if you are in the US .
Typical 3 teir system.
Server 1 Webserver Tier (IIS/Apache)
IIS:
IBM 365 4 CPU @ 3.02 ghz, 4 Gb RAM, Windows, NIC, Disk
$12,000
Apache + Sun:
Sun V240 Server 2 CPU @ 1.5 ghz 2GB RAM, OS, NIC, Disk
$16,000
Server2 Business Logic Teir( .NET/J2EE - Websphere)
.NET Solution:
IBM 365 4 CPU @ 3.02 ghz, 4 Gb RAM, Windows, NIC, Disk
TP Monitor - COM+ Free
$12,000
Websphere:
Sun V440 Server 4 CPU @ 1.28 ghz 4GB RAM ($24K)
Websphere @$22K per CPU = $88K
TP Monitor: TXSeries: $40K
Total: $152K
Server3 RDBMS Teir (SQL Server 2005/Oracle)
SQL Server 2005:
IBM 365 4 CPU @ 3.02 ghz, 16 Gb RAM, OS, NIC, Disk ($24K)
SQL Server 2005 License: $3.2K for 3 years
Total: $27.2K
Oracle Server:
Sun V440 Server 4 CPU @ 1.28 ghz 16GB RAM, OS, NIC ($36K)
Oracle licenses @$55K per CPU (not including maintenance)
Total: $256K
Total MS: $51.2K
Total Oracle + Websphere + Sun: $424K
Note these costs don't include, Development, Development tools, SAN Storage or any redundancy and are for illustrative purposes only. My gut feeling is that the Websphere + Oracle solution is slightly more stable. If well managed and with Disaster Recovery, both would be sufficiently stable. The J2EE solution is roughly 10 times as expensive. All it takes is some younger up and coming excutives in large IT infrastructures to push this and I believe the Oracle + Websphere will be pushed out.
What can we learn from this?
1) Microsoft is giving its technology away to large customers to gain market share.
2) Oracle + CICS (TXSeries) + Websphere are doomed.
Could you design a similar Open Source solution?
Opensource is almost there but is missing a solid TP Monitor (pgpool) and a XA Transaction enabled database that allows for enough backup options. JBOSS (or similar) + Postgresql 8 + slony-I plus perhaps LVM + DRBD would cover most of the rest. In the long run the Open Source solution would be cheaper and without the risk of vendor lock in.
Posted by Anthony at March 2, 2005 10:58 AM