The WEBSPHERE ADVISOR EDITORS' CHOICE AWARDS for 2003 go to...

• DEVELOPMENT TOOLS
• PORTAL DEVELOPMENT
• SECURITY
• DATA INTEGRATION
• PERFORMANCE
• CONTENT MANAGEMENT

Development Tools


WebAccel
Compuflex International
http://www.compuflex.com
Unlike most plug-ins and toolkits available for popular IDEs, WebAccel has features that cover both front-end and back-end development. It has support for easier Web-based GUI development of complex layouts that few others offer, and it fully supports easy server-side Java code development.

The most striking feature of WebAccel is the JSP-based framework that helps develop complex database-driven Web based applications. There is a small learning curve involved in learning how to use the framework, but it's worth it when evaluated on the rich features and speed of development. Among the notable features are the multiple table updates that are accomplished through a bean using SQL statements. You don't have to optimize these queries because WebAccel keeps track of the data that has undergone change and buffers them in an XML file. The update is then fired once taking away the necessity to use multiple database connections for each set of updates. It uses lesser classes than traditional frameworks and has optimized operations for much functionality.


DBArtisan
Embarcadero Technologies
http://www.embarcadero.com
DBArtisan is a set of very cool database administration tools for most popular relational databases, including DB2. It includes three separate client tools (all run on Windows 32-bit): one for data modeling, one for database application development, and one for administration.

DBArtisan is especially useful for migrating data from one RDBMS to another, modifying existing database schemas, or migrating data within a single RDBMS. It also lets you develop reusable scripts for everyday management and security tasks.


Rational XDE
IBM Rational
http://www.ibm.com
Based on Eclipse and integrated with WebSphere Studio Application Developer, Rational XDE is a powerful set of end-to-end application development tools. Spanning the entire application lifecycle, Rational XDE provides roundtrip Java code engineering, code and model synchronization, pattern engine, multi-model support, and lets you reverse-engineer database assets into data models. Rational XDE automatically generates UML code visualizations, which helps to reduce development complexity. Rational XDE also integrates the modeling capabilities with the code editor and debugger to make for seamless development.


Visual SlickEdit Plug-In for WebSphere Studio and Eclipse
SlickEdit
http://www.slickedit.com
Visual SlickEdit Plug-in for WebSphere Studio and Eclipse is a very nice looking visual editor for Java code, especially for J2EE components. It offers both a standalone editor for Windows 32-bit, and an Eclipse plug-in that works seamlessly with WebSphere Studio. If you're tired of using WebSphere Studio's "/File/Import" command to bring in Java code all the time, the SlickEdit plug-in lets you use the more natural /File/Open dialogs, and incorporates the new files into your project. SlickEdit is incredibly useful for those doing JNI development, letting you use an intelligent editor for languages other than Java.


M7 Application Assembly Suite
M7 Corporation
http://www.m7.com
M7 provides a design/development environment for rapid development of J2EE applications. The big productivity feature in M7 is the design repository, which keeps track of reusable J2EE components deployed on your network. The repository makes it easy to incorporate access to these already deployed components in the new code you're writing: You simply use the M7 menu to incorporate references to JSPs, servlets, or EJBs in your code, and M7 adds all the necessary JNDI, HTTP, or other Java code directly into your program. M7 ships plug-ins for Eclipse, WebSphere Studio, JBuilder, and Visual Café.

Portal Development


Bowstreet Portlet Factory for WebSphere
Bowstreet
http://www.bowstreet.com
WebSphere Portal is a complex product with numerous installation and development challenges. Bowstreet Portlet Factory for WebSphere makes creating and maintaining a highly customized portal quick and painless. Portlet Factory simplifies development, deployment, and change management by presenting portlets not only as portlets, but also as standalone Web applications and Web services. Portlet Factory for WebSphere goes beyond traditional rapid application development approaches so you can create, deploy, and modify portlets in real time, making the portlets flexible and able to quickly respond to changing business needs.

Security


Network-Attached Encryption
Ingrian Networks
http://www.ingrian.com
Ingrian Networks' Network-Attached Encryption (NAE) solution uses Java Cryptography Extension (JCE) framework functions to encrypt data on application servers, databases, and other storage devices. Any J2EE application server that supports JDK 1.4.1 supports JCE, such as IBM WebSphere Application Server. The security functionality is provided by a custom JCE provider that functions at the application level and affects stored data. You can still use SSL and other encryption technologies for transaction and network transportation security. Most servers have their own encryption solution, but Network-Attached Encryption spans application server and relational database formats. Ingrian platforms can also include integrated FIPS 140-2 Level 3-compliant hardware modules for additional encryption key security.


AppShield
Sanctum
http://www.sanctuminc.com
Sanctum AppShield is a mature failsafe Web application firewall that provides a centralized real time security management. It supports almost all the major network architectures. Its unique Policy Recognition Engine can analyze all the pages of a Web application and create dynamic security policy automagically. It has built in security templates to simplify security configurations for complex sites. It also has a good centralized administration interface to organize and manage rules, as well as perform other administrative tasks such checking logs for application-level breaches, hacking attempts on the site, configuring SSL and security certificates, network configuration, security level setting, etc. It sends alert notifications and also detects the attackers. It can also detect encrypted attacks as SSL proxy. AppShield is easy to install and configure. It's scalable and supports the use of load balancers for workload management.


DataSecure for WebSphere MQ
Primeur Srl
http://www.primeur.com
This product was created by Primeur Srl, an Italian software company, but is marketed and distributed in the United States by MQ Software (http://www.mqsoftware.com). DataSecure for WebSphere MQ End-To-End (DSMQ E2E) runs on the IBM WebSphere MQ environment and secures MQ messages in WebSphere MQ queues. Because it runs at the queue level on application data, DSMQ E2E adds message security without requiring any changes in your applications. DataSecure for WebSphere MQ Link (DSMQ Link) supports the same functionality, but secures messages over WebSphere MQ networks at the channel level. Both products include support for data encryption and data, sender, and peer entity authentication, based on support for RSA Public-Key Cryptography Standards (PKCS) 1 to 12. It also supports S/MIME and X.509 for three-way peer entity authentication.

Data Integration


DataDirect for JDBC
DataDirect Technologies
http://www.datadirect-technologies.com
DataDirect Connect for JDBC is a complete set of Type 4 JDBC drivers for Oracle, DB2, SQL Server, Sybase, and Informix. The drivers are fully JDBC 3.0 compliant and support JTA across all major databases. The driver offers BLOB/CLOB read and write for SQL Server and Sybase even though those databases don't provide native support for these data types. With DataDirect Connect, you get the same architecture and consistent functionality no matter what the database. In addition to the JDBC driver, it comes with a software developer kit (SDK) that includes a debugging tool called DataDirect Test, which is a graphical, menu-driven program. It also includes DataDirect Spy, a utility for tracing JDBC calls in running programs. DataDirect Spy passes calls issued by an application to an underlying JDBC driver and logs detailed information about those calls. It also logs the results passed back from the database to the application. You can also use the DataDirect for JDBC driver with DataDirect jXtransformer for relational-XML data transformation. Its manageability and consistency across multiple platforms is useful for enterprises that have applications running on diverse platforms.


CocoBase
Thought Inc.
http://thoughtinc.com
CocoBase is a fully portable object-to-relational (O/R) tool based on pure Java that's designed to work with the J2EE, J2SE, and J2ME platforms. CocoBase's rapid application development features save you time and money by reducing development time. These features include performance, integration with development tools, usability, scalability, ease of maintenance, and flexibility. The CocoBase Dynamic Transparent Persistence, one of a kind compared to similar products in the market, decouples the database-specific codes from the object and uses its mapping layer to dynamically generate SQL at runtime. You can easily tune it for scaling and performance optimization.

You can use CocoBase to persist any object type, such as RMI, Corba, Java class, or Entity EJBs, and also map data from UML/XML modeling tools. Because CocoBase acts as a layer between the application and the relational database, you can change the O/R mapping without having to alter the object model.

Performance


PathWAI
Candle Corporation
http://www.candle.com
PathWAI lets you maximize WebSphere application performance and availability with a comprehensive toolbox and hands-free management capabilities. PathWAI Monitor for WebSphere Application Server helps you identify memory leaks, frequent garbage collection, thread lock contention, CPU usage, and a variety of other performance slowdowns. PathWAI Dashboard lets you track specific business processes in a single integrated view so you get an enterprise-wide look into application and system performance. Both PathWAI Monitor and PathWAI Dashboard offer pre-defined and customizable alerts and application management diagnostics for Java-based components. The PathWAI products are easy to install and you can customize their configurations to meet your particular business needs.


Foglight
Quest Software
http://java.quest.com
Because isolating the problem is the most important part of curing a performance issue, diagnostic ability is critical in a performance analysis tool. Foglight from Quest Software excels in diagnostics. Foglight identifies potential problems long before users are affected, and resolves these problems immediately with unique diagnostics capabilities. It uses a lightweight Java component that resides next to WebSphere Application Server and collects the data necessary to provide accurate information about the health and status of WebSphere Application Server and the applications it supports. Foglight monitors transaction response times, letting you drill down to review usage and response times of individual bean types.
Foglight also monitors the amount of memory used by the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) and maintains strict service-level agreements.


JProbe
Quest Software
http://java.quest.com
The JProbe line of products contains four major software components: JProbe Profiler, JProbe Threadalyzer, JProbe Memory Debugger, and JProbe J2EE Integration. The first three help you investigate code performance in the development phase. Features such as a wizard for J2EE-based application server and IDE integration, local or remote code profiling, and "Call Graph" enhance this suite and make it easy to identify performance bottlenecks. The JProbe Threadalyzer identifies reasons for a deadlock within an application. The Lock Order Analyzer can predict the possibility of a deadlock before it happens. JProbe Memory Debugger acts as real-time investigator for a J2EE application by showing memory leaks and unused objects. This component acts as a root cause problem identifier for application memory, which is then displayed with reference graphs. The JProbe J2EE Integration module lets you configure the suite for numerous application servers, including WebSphere Application Server. The suite comes with good user documentation covering each
feature in detail.


Cyanea/One
Cyanea Systems
http://www.cyanea.com
Cyanea/One helps you predict and manage J2EE application and resources growth using capacity planning. Capacity planning analyzes current and historical behavior and provides modeling exercises to help you make appropriate business-driven decisions. Cyanea/One easily locates running threads and takes corrective action without restarting the servers. It monitors applications based on performance needs, without negative impact on users. Cyanea/One can also quickly identify problematic client requests, as well as rapidly compare and analyze important application server resources.


Fenway
Dirig Software
http://www.dirig.com
Fenway monitors multiple applications, servers, databases, application server components, and performance-related events to identify problems and provide suggestions to enhance performance. Fenway automatically discovers components and connections to help you identify the most critical performance areas. The product manages the allocated memory heap and supports both J2EE and Microsoft MTS/COM+. Fenway also provides performance management for Java Management eXtensions-enabled (JMX) applications.

Content Management


Stellent Content Management
Stellent
http://www.stellent.com
Stellent Content Management is an n-tier, Java-based, modular architecture you can implement as a standalone application to create content-centric Web sites or as an integrated infrastructure component to supply content to Web sites and other e-business applications. Users can contribute content in native file formats and Stellent Content Management automatically converts the files to Web-ready formats, such as HTML, XML, WML, cHTML, and PDF. Stellent also provides a set of portlets for easy integration with WebSphere Portal, providing a single point of access to content and applications.


TeamSite
Interwoven
http://www.interwoven.com
Content overload and duplication plague many enterprises. TeamSite helps you overcome these challenges using a high performance object store architecture. Collaborative document management features let you secure document sharing among team members. Versioning capabilities help you maintain documents, code, media, XML, and HTML. TeamSite also provides whole site archiving and rollback. Security features integrate single sign-on and provide asset-level access control. Rich media asset capabilities catalog and manage rich media assets for easy retrieval and reuse.