Which Java Application Servers are in use and recommended?

We are evaluating Java-based open source Business Process Management Systems such as Bonitasoft BPM and Activiti and have been using Tomcat as our Application Server during the evaluation and pilot project.

There is an incompitability between Bonitasoft and MS SQL Server when using Tomcat which would require us to use another BPMS, a different DBMS or a different Application Server, such as JBoss which is actually Bonitasoft's recommendation.

I'd like to know which Java Application Servers are currently in use and what are peoples' experiences (both positive and negative) with installation, reliability, performance and administration/management.

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Ioannis Mavroukakis

Hi Simon, what sort of incompatibility might that be?

Ioannis Mavroukakis

I should quantify my previous comment. I'm only asking as JBoss Servlet/JSP spec is *based* on Tomcat http://jbossweb.jboss.org/arch.html.

Simon Tilbrook

Hi Ioannis

Bonitasoft on Tomcat relies on Bitronix for transaction management and the problem arises between Bitronix and MS SQL Server (see http://bitronix-transaction-manager.10986.n7.nabble.com/Failed-to-recover-SQL-Server-Restart-td148.html for a discussion). I tried with both the Microsoft and JTDS JDBC drivers but neither would work.

JBoss does not need Bitronix and so the problem does not arise

Ervan Setiawan

Simon,

We are actually building a BPM workflow service on Cobalt that uses Activiti as the process engine. We are using Tomcat app servers and Oracle databases.

Here is a link to the slides that describe our workflow service:
https://thehub.thomsonreuters.com/docs/DOC-755792

Thanks.

Simon Tilbrook

Thanks Ervan

We have been running a pilot/evaluation project using both Bonitasoft and Activiti on Tomcat (the former using MySQL, the latter using MS SQL Server) and are planning to proceed with Bonita mainly due to its (in our opinion) superior process modeling capabilities.

Our conclusions are documented here: https://thehub.thomsonreuters.com/docs/DOC-752208

Ioannis Mavroukakis

You can still use Tomcat and replace Bitronix with Atomikos: http://documentation.bonitasoft.com/replace-bitronix-atomikos

Simon Tilbrook

Thanks very much for this Ioannis - I will give it a go! We had been promised a fix in "the next release" and it seems that this is it.

Adam Fokken

I'll provide the DCO perspective. The first choice would be Tomcat and then if a full JEE container is needed with transaction support we would use IBM Websphere Application Server.

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