Oracle Confidential – For Internal Use Only

Compete Guide: Oracle WebLogic 12c vs. IBM WAS v8.5.5

By: Competitive Intelligence Team. Last Updated: October 2013
Contributors: Kwan Wan, Mike Lehmann

Note: IBM WAS 9.0 became beta as of October 2015 (see

https://developer.ibm.com/wasdev/blog/2015/10/17/websphere-application-server-v9-beta/).
Therefore, the knockoffs against IBM WebSphere App Server in this document are still valid until WAS 9.0
becomes generally available.

Summary

Summary of Oracle Key Differentiators

 Oracle WebLogic is #1 in worldwide Application Server vendor share (Gartner & IDC). There are many more
developers, consultants, ISVs and SIs familiar with WLS than WAS. There is safety in number.
 Performance and operational efficiency of WebLogic translate into lower TCO: (1) WebLogic’s performance
advantage, which means less hardware, software, and support costs for the same workload. (2) Oracle’s cohesive
approach to application platform design, which reduces operational costs (OpEx). The ongoing operational costs
for IBM WebSphere were generally higher than for Oracle WebLogic. And (3) IBM’s higher personnel costs and
dependence on professional services, which raises people costs and reduces agility.
 Oracle WebLogic’s suite-based approach means all the tools needed for an enterprise-ready application server
platform are packaged together with integration between components. This accelerates application development,
deployment and improves time-to-value and guarantees interoperability. IBM is emulating Oracle’s suite-based
approach and is now packaging numerous components in WAS ND.
 Single pane management for operational efficiency and proactive management through Enterprise Manager WLS
Management Pack EE. Numerous features for pro-active management to prevent system failure--including alerts,
problem diagnostics, service level, configuration and lifecycle management. Uninterrupted business operations
through self-tuning and state of the art diagnostics tools, all accessible through easy to set up dashboards. Self
tuning of thread pool in WebLogic is a differentiator. There is nothing similar in WAS – thus a lot time is wasted in
tuning the various thread pools in WAS.
 Unmatched performance and scalability as verified by industry benchmark SPECjEnterprise 2010. High performing
JRockit JVM with features for real time performance, and Java application profiling and management.
 Complete set of tools for virtual environment provisioning and deployment through Oracle Virtual Assembly Builder
(OVAB), which is included as part of Oracle WebLogic Suite. It also does not rely on VMware, which is additional
cost with different management tools. Moreover, IBM Workload Deployer (the equivalent of OVAB) and its related
management tools are separately licensed products.
 Complete framework (such as security, deployment, and diagnostics, etc.) for deploying applications in a flexible
way without extra add-on products and configuration of thick routers.
 Industry leading in-memory data grid Coherence Enterprise Edition as part of WebLogic Suite, provides scale-out
for most demanding data intensive applications with less complex set up and management compared to IBM.
Unlike the disjointed eXtreme Scale management tools, Coherence operations and administration are seamlessly
integrated with WebLogic Server.
 Oracle Active GridLink for RAC provides a highly optimized integration between Oracle WebLogic and Oracle RAC
to provide high availability and scalability. WAS does not have something comparable.
 A strong and easy-to-use IDE with support for a rapid application development framework (ADF) that dramatically
speeds up development effort. Full support for Eclipse and deep Maven integration for build automation and
dependency management. Deep support for Spring in both application server and IDE. In contrast, IBM RAD is
heavyweight, more difficult to use and higher learning curve. Many developers complain about it.
 Seamless scale up applications from Glassfish with built-in deployment descriptor recognition for easy re-
deployment to Oracle WebLogic Server.
 Exalogic provides true HW+SW integration and optimization for superior performance, ease of deployment and
management that is unmatched by WebSphere or IBM PureApplication System. Integrated traffic management to
correctly route, shape, cache and prioritize traffic through Oracle Traffic Director (on Oracle Exalogic).

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Top Attack Points against IBM WebSphere Application Server

 IBM sells products piecemeal and puts together ad-hoc bundles, which is really just a pricing tactic with minimal
integration. Oracle has a suite-based approach to middleware, including application server, which brings down
costs. Please note the full set of products in the WebLogic Suite. Oracle’s goal is better integration between
components in the suite, which tends to bring down TCO due to common interfaces and better integration between
components. Also the suite-based approach can put a more effective cap on the products needed and prevent the
chaining of Tivoli and Rational products due to product dependencies.
 Real Application Clusters (RAC) support on WebSphere Application Server (WAS) relies solely on the basic
Oracle JDBC thin driver for failover and load balancing.  There is no support for RAC Services and nothing like an
abstracted multi-data source support in WebLogic. Oracle Active GridLink for RAC provides a highly optimized
integration between Oracle WebLogic Data Sources and Oracle RAC including multi data source support through
an abstracted layer.
 IBM offers eXtreme Scale for distributed in-memory caching and a hardware based DataPower appliance XC10
caching solution. However, both products require extensive configuration or professional services. Oracle on the
other hand provides industry leading in-memory data grid Coherence Enterprise Edition as part of WebLogic Suite,
for most demanding data intensive applications with less complex set up and management compared to IBM.
Coherence operations and administration are seamlessly integrated with WebLogic Server.
 IBM has no true Engineered System offering like Exalogic (note: IBM PureApplication System is only a converged
infrastructure solution without deep HW/SW integration and optimization). WebLogic on Exalogic provides
unmatched performance, TCO and QoS for Java applications. Several enhancements have been added to
WebLogic to deliver the maximum performance on Exalogic, e.g. Native InfiniBand support, Sockets Direct
Protocol (SDP) support and Exalogic-aware workload management and self tuning. These enhancements are
added to standard distribution, i.e. there is no special distribution for Exalogic but through a set of built-in advances
WebLogic server natively recognizes Exalogic and delivers even better performance. If you are in an Exalogic
deal against IBM, please see: Competing against IBM PureApplication and FactPoint: How Oracle Exalogic Beat
IBM POWER for Running Apps & Middleware.
 IBM requires a complex set of tools and products for WebSphere virtualization support and management, including
VMware, Tivoli, Workload Deployer and WebSphere Virtual Enterprise. WebLogic includes Oracle Virtual
Assembly Builder (OVAB), which makes it possible for administrators to quickly configure and provision entire
multi-tier application topologies onto virtualized and cloud environments. It provides a framework for capturing the
configuration of existing software components and packaging them as self-contained building blocks known as
“appliances”. These appliances can then be easily connected to form application assemblies. This innovative
approach makes it practical for complex enterprise applications to easily be customized and provisioned in their
entirety with minimal to no manual intervention onto virtualized and cloud environments.

Top IBM Attacks and How to Counter

1. IBM will claim that WebSphere Application Server has better performance and leads Oracle in the industry
standard SpecJEnterprise 2010 benchmark.
Counter: Not true, Oracle WebLogic has been the leader in performance for several years with an occasional
advancement from IBM. Oracle WebLogic Server now holds the overall world record and the best 2- processor
system benchmark in addition to delivering the highest performance per core and per processor of any result ever
published on SPECjEnterprise 2010 benchmark. For more details, visit the SPECj website for a complete listing of
tests and see appendix for graphical listing of scores.
2. IBM claims that Oracle WebLogic Server is more expensive than WebSphere as Oracle WebLogic has higher
license and support costs.
Counter: IBM’s ala carte pricing model usually costs more when putting together a solution infrastructure
compared with Oracle’s Suite based pricing model. Oracle offers suite packaging to make it easier for our
customers to understand what products are typically used to solve targeted challenges (for example, Oracle
WebLogic Suite includes products that are typically used in a typical enterprise application development and
deployment solution). This is an example of Oracle’s corporate strategy to simplify IT for our customers. See
detailed rebuttal.
3. IBM will claim better management and application virtualization with WebSphere Virtual Enterprise (WVE). WVE
supports IBM WebSphere Application Server, Process Server, Service Registry and Repository, ESB, Portal, and
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 Oracle Confidential – For Internal Use Only

Commerce. Oracle virtualization offerings are limited to the WebLogic Server only with no support for Oracle BPM,
ESB, Portal, or other platform products.
Counter: IBM WVE has a very narrow focus on managing WebSphere applications assemblies. Moreover, WVE
is a separate product that sits on top of WAS and requires additional license, which increases the TCO. On the
other hand, OVAB is designed to help organizations quickly create and configure entire multi-tier application
topologies and provision them onto virtualized resources. It enables IT organizations to take multi-tier enterprise
applications – for example, a web server, application server, and database – and package them into self-contained
software appliances for rapid deployment.
4. IBM will emphasize its role in creating standards such as WS-*, BPEL, OSGi and claim a leadership role in
providing SCA/SCO support. It will claim Oracle lags in setting and supporting standards.
Counter: Oracle has been a leader with BPEL and supports a broad range of WS-* standards. Oracle’s TopLink
is the reference implementation of EJB 3.0 O/R. Oracle is a co-spec lead for EJB 3.0, core contributor to Apache
MyFaces, co-author of SCA/SCO, and a board member and president of the Liberty Alliance, etc. The Oracle
WebLogic Server team has been active in the OSGi community with its developers and its product team, most
notably with one concrete result being the Oracle Complex Event Processing Server which is based on an OSGi
infrastructure derived from WebLogic Server. OSGi is also used internal to WebLogic Server to enable some
architectural infrastructure.
In general, while there is ongoing interest in OSGi from our customer base, the feedback we receive from our
customer advisory community places higher priority for investment in the areas like Java EE, Fusion Middleware
and Exalogic. Within the overall Cloud Application Foundation product line, GlassFish also has support for OSGi
as a mechanism to keep an eye on developer interest and how significantly the technology should be invested in
as an adjunct to Java EE, as the standard moves forward.
5. IBM will say that Oracle's middleware, including its application server architecture, is geared toward providing
integration for Oracle applications only, while it is a neutral alternative.
Counter: IBM says it is neutral, but in fact, its middleware and application server have numerous IBM-only and
WebSphere only technology elements that lock customers into WebSphere.
Oracle FMW does have specialized support for Oracle applications through AIA and adapter support, however this
is a positive for Oracle and not a negative. IBM is at a disadvantage when selling into customers with Oracle
applications for this reason. At the same time, Oracle WebLogic Suite offers comprehensive, integrated and best
of breed application infrastructure which is proven for its superior Java EE standards support for any Java
applications. Point out that IBM is far from neutral, and has its mainframe and midrange business to protect and
its track record for supporting industry standards is not as distinguished as Oracle.

FMW Customer Reference

FMW Customer Reference Portal http://my.oracle.com/site/pd/fmw/customers/index.html

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IBM WebSphere Application Server Overview

IBM offers a number of WebSphere application server (WAS) editions, from basic Liberty Core (Liberty Profile), to
mainframe versions, to high end distributed cache and management servers that do not necessarily run on WAS
servers. Associated tools include the Rational Application Developer (RAD), as well as a number of feature packs.
The WebSphere Community Edition (based on Apache Geronimo) is being phased out. WebSphere Liberty Core will
replace it in its place.

In general, there is a long list of functionality in WebSphere, similar to WebLogic. However, Oracle’s advantages with
WebLogic are 1) Performance, 2) Single Pane Manageability, and 3) Integration with FMW Stack – leading to less
complexity, better scalability and lower TCO.

IBM has been waging an aggressive campaign against Oracle in the past few years – attacking WebLogic’s pricing,
performance and virtualization, etc. as key wedge issues to convince customers to migrate to IBM WebSphere. It also
has dedicated websites (Get the Facts and Why Pay More), financing incentives, migration services, whitepapers,
press releases, media advertisements, and one-to-one customer meetings to execute this campaign.

As part of this very aggressive competitive campaign, IBM has published a whitepaper titled “Comparing IBM
WebSphere and Oracle WebLogic” that attacks Oracle WebLogic Server on several fronts.  To combat these IBM
claims, please see this document: Response to IBM WebSphere vs. Oracle WebLogic Whitepaper. We have
addressed each topic categorically in the rebuttal paper and highlighted the reasons why Oracle WebLogic Server is
the most popular application server favored by developers and enterprises.

In June 2013, it passed around a PowerPoint competitively positioning against WLS 12c. For more information, please
see Rebuttal: IBM WAS 8.5 vs. Oracle WLS 12c competitive positioning.

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 Oracle Confidential – For Internal Use Only

IBM WebSphere Application Server (WAS) Editions

IBM application infrastructure and transaction processing is located in the WebSphere Application Server (WAS)
product line and includes a number of editions and packages:
 WAS Liberty Core. Basic, lightweight Java EE application server. It is based on IBM’s Liberty Profile and not
a Java EE full profile application server.
 WAS Express: Lower-cost, ready-to-go solution for smaller scale deployments of dynamic web applications. It
includes both Liberty Profile and Full Profile.
 WAS (Base): Designed for developing and running dynamic web applications on single server or moderately
sized deployment environments. Includes entitlement to eXtreme Scale for HTTP session caching and
DynaCache on the entitled WAS.
 WAS Network Deployment (WAS ND): WAS in clustered domains with advanced management, performance
optimization and availability for enterprise applications. WAS ND includes WebSphere Virtual Enterprise
(intelligent management pack), WebSphere Compute Grid (batch processing), and full entitlement to
WebSphere eXtreme Scale data grid (note: eXtreme Scale does not need to run on WAS).
 WAS for Z/OS: Takes advantage of the qualities of service of IBM z/OS.
 WAS Hypervisor Edition (WHE): Optimized to run in PureApplication, VMware and other server virtualization
environments.

IBM also provides several additional products that extend WebSphere Application Server for specific set of
requirements. The extended WebSphere brand products are:
 WebSphere Virtual Enterprise (WVE): manages WebSphere Application Server instances in virtualized data
centers. Starting with WAS v8.5 this is now part of WebSphere ND as Intelligent Management Pack.
 WebSphere Compute Grid (WCG) offers APIs and support for Java-based distributed batch transactional
processing. Compute Grid is also now included with WAS ND v8.5. Compute Grid and Virtual Enterprise are
meant to work together and most users will need the health monitoring, and other features that are in
WebSphere Virtual Enterprise.
 WebSphere eXtreme Scale (WXS): This is a distributed in-memory memory cache for high performance
computing (equivalent of Oracle Coherence). WAS ND 8.5.5 now includes the full entitlement to WXS.
 WebSphere Real Time (WRT): JVM for deterministic memory management for applications that require
predictable performance. This is licensed separately.
 IBM Workload Deployer (IWD): Appliance for provisioning WAS instances in virtualized data centers. IWD is
licensed separately.

Where We Compete:

Use Case Oracle IBM

Basic requirements WebLogic Server Standard Edition WAS (Base)
Enterprises with need for clustering, WAS ND (without
WebLogic Server Enterprise Edition
diagnostics and cloud deployment WebSphere eXtreme Scale)
Enterprises with need for clustering,
workload balancing, distributed
management/diagnostics, self-tuning, WebLogic Suite WAS ND
real time performance, and distributed
in-memory data grid
High volume, low latency use cases with
Coherence Grid Edition WAS eXtreme Scale
need for distributed in-memory data grid
Enterprise looking for Java application
consolidation, very high performance
WebLogic on Oracle Exalogic IBM PureApplication System
requirements, simplified management
and rapid deployment solution.

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New Features in WebSphere Application Server v8.5

WebSphere Application Server v8.5:  The new WAS release GA on June 15, 2012.  This is not a major release of
the application server but includes capabilities targeted at developers and administrators roles in the organizations.
 Liberty Profile for Developers:  The new version of WAS includes a lightweight profile called “Liberty Profile”,
targeted at developers community.   The Liberty profile enables the WAS server to provision only the features
required by the application deployed to the server. If an application requires just a servlet engine, then all that
starts is the WAS kernel, the HTTP transport and the web container.  IBM touted startup time for the liberty profile
around <5 sec and small footprint of 60MB with unzip install and deploy support.   IBM is mainly targeting Tomcat
and JBoss competition with the Liberty Profile.  Liberty Profile is included with all editions of WebSphere
Application Server.
 WebSphere Virtual Enterprise (WVE) and WebSphere Compute Grid (WCG) merged with WAS ND: IBM has
merged WVE and WCG into WebSphere Application Server ND.  Both WVE and WCG used to be separate SKUs
within the WebSphere family.  WVE provided workload management solution for WebSphere like health
management, routing etc; while WCG provided support for running batch workload on WebSphere application
server.  IBM now labels these capabilities as “Intelligent Management”.
 IBM Worklight Server and Worklight Studio:  With this release IBM added the Worklight solution for mobile
development into its WebSphere family.  IBM acquired Worklight in January 2012, see CI newsletter about the
acquisition.  IBM Worklight Server is a key component of IBM Mobile Foundation and it leverages WAS Liberty
Profile as its runtime.  IBM Worklight Server is licensed separately.

WebSphere Application
Infrastructure
What’s Changed with v8.5

WAS v8.0

WAS v8.5

 Key knockoffs against IBM WebSphere v8.5 release:

1. Developer Productivity:
 Highlight that WebLogic 12c provides developer zip distribution with supported for development use.  The
developer zip distribution needs no installer, just unzip and use.  The developer zip distribution is available
on Windows, Linux and Mac OSX.  This distribution allows developers to start WebLogic instance without
EJB, JMS and JCA containers.  Developer zip distribution also provide FastSwap feature to greatly reduce
project redeployment requirements when doing iterative deployment.

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 Point out that WebLogic 12c is integrated with Maven to bring what are de facto industry practices with
open source dependency management frameworks, build environments like Hudson and popular
development environments like JDeveloper, NetBeans and Eclipse.   Specifically in WebLogic 12c we
have a set of Maven goals and functions, including: install, execute WLST scripts, appc support,
deployment, server lifecycle (start/stop) and even domain creation. This makes not only the usage of
Maven for dependency management but also part of a simplified build, test and tear down cycle incredibly
easy.

2. Manageability:
 Point out that IBM has not introduced any new management capabilities in WAS ND v8.5 rather just
merged existing WebSphere Virtual Enterprise application management capabilities in the WAS ND.  This
is simply a SKU consolidation and not new innovation by IBM.

Although this is seen as a WVE consolidation, the new features are considered to be very valuable at no
additional licensing cost. For example, WVE Dynamic Clustering enables dynamic provisioning, starting
and stopping of servers based on a predefined SLA. In some ways, it is more advanced than WLS 12c’s
Dynamic Clustering, which involves manual starting and stopping of servers. Also the health monitoring
capability of the WVE is a welcome feature even though it is not innovative.

 Highlight that Oracle strategy is to offer unified integrated management capabilities via its Enterprise
Manager Platform and offer EM management packs for workload specific management capabilities, for
example, WebLogic Server Management Pack EE for comprehensive performance, service and lifecycle
management capabilities from a single pane of glass. Ease of manageability leads to lower overall TCO.

3. SpecJEnterprise 2010 Benchmark:

 SPECj benchmark is a leapfrogging game. WebLogic has been the leader in performance for several
years with an occasional advancement from IBM. WebLogic Server now holds the overall world record in
multi-node and virtualized processor performance.

Oracle has the highest overall EjOPS: 3.4X more workload than IBM (WLS 12c vs. IBM WebSphere)

Oracle has the highest overall EjOPs per Processor Virtualized: 2.5X more workload per processor than
IBM (WLS 12c vs. IBM WebSphere 8.5.5)

Source: http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/press/2021054

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Summary of IBM WAS Strengths and Weaknesses
Company Strengths:
 Largest vendor in middleware space with large sales
force (2,000 to 3,000 for WebSphere).
 Large installed base
 Very large services organization with strong
application infrastructure/transactional processing
skills.
 Strong vertical selling efforts through partners, IBM
Industries Group and GBS.
 Strong products in extended middleware stack,
including CICS for TP monitor, Rational Application
Developer for Java IDE, MQ/Process Server for
integration, Tivoli for security, systems management,
Information Integrator for data integration.
 IBM Reps often have relationships with CTO and CIO
and are able to articulate business value for technical
middleware products.
 IBM has an active ISV program and is included as a
must- port platform for most Java-based ISVs. Efforts
include programs aimed at ISVs in the SMB space.
Product Strengths:
 IBM has good validation from third party analyst firms.
This includes leader position in Gartner on-premise
EAS (Enterprise Application Server). (See Analyst
section below).
 IBM will tout the price for WAS ND ($18,400/100
PVU), as well as first year of support included for
“free,” as differentiators. This does not take into
account the suite based approach that can keep the
license cost of normal deployments lower.
 WAS is the run-time foundation of numerous IBM
products, including WebSphere Process Server, etc.
and adoption of these higher level components will
entail adoption of WAS. IBM usually ships their
products with a runtime version, therefore seeding the
market.
 IBM has a variety of options for smaller firms, and/or
those that want to use open source as their
application server foundation. This includes Liberty
Core, WAS, and WAS-Express.
 IBM runs on a large number of platforms (13 major
platforms, including multiple Linux, UNIX, Windows,
and Linux on the mainframe and Z/OS) and is
localized in 13 languages.
 WAS ND includes strong clustering management and
automated failover features including a workload
manager.
 WAS ND has a number of caching options, including
user configurable caching, and event caching, that
spans servers and can be implemented through
policies.
 WebSphere Compute Grid and Virtual Enterprise
provide strong policy-based features for routing and
Oracle Confidential – For Internal Use Only
Company Weaknesses:
 Although IBM GBS has strong support for building
transaction processing foundation in its various
consulting practices, implementation is not
necessarily always on WebSphere.
 A customer’s reliance on IBM services organization
(currently accounts for around 60 percent of IBM
sales) could translate into higher services costs on a
project basis or long-term basis.
 Bias toward mainframe processing throughout many
IBM organizations, including services organizations,
which may conflict with customer cost savings/ability
imperatives.
 Similarly, multiple sales organizations aligned by
brand are not always closely tied to WebSphere
group for sales execution. Many groups within IBM do
not always cooperate with each other. For example,
due to comp plans, WebSphere reps do not
necessarily push Tivoli and vice versa.
 Similarly, in terms of extended middleware suite,
IBM's internal structure inhibits cooperation between
different divisions on sales, and development level.
 IBM's lack of comprehensive business applications
suites can limit its view into business problems in
some accounts, compared to Oracle.
Product Weaknesses:
 WAS Community Edition is being phased out. Liberty
Core is replacing it in the low-end space. Liberty
Core is lightweight but very basic. It is not a Java EE
6 Full Profile compliant. Oracle GlassFish, on the
other hand, is the Java EE reference implementation
with built-in deployment descriptor recognition for
easy scale up deployment to Oracle WebLogic
Server.
 The lack of a suite based approach, means that to get
functionality needed for typical enterprise
deployments, users will have to buy separate Tivoli,
Rational or WebSphere products. The chaining effect
due to dependencies in Tivoli of other Tivoli products,
means even more products need to be brought into
the equation.
 In general, while IBM has a host of features, analysts
and users find it demands more configuration /
programming than competing products, which brings
up management costs.
 Oracle WebLogic has consistently outperformed IBM
in benchmarks (e.g., SpecJEnterprise), taken on a
wide variety of systems.
 Oracle WebLogic has a number of frameworks,
particularly for security, deployment, and diagnostics
that ease the job of setting up an application server
platform. With IBM, separate products often need to
be brought into the equation, and the lack of a
framework means more configuration, testing and/or
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assigning batch jobs. They can be assigned to programming may be needed.

clustered or pooled servers that can be, in some
cases, geographically dispersed. Policies are rules
based and can follow business directives.
 WebSphere Compute Grid has strong support for
Java-based transaction-oriented batch jobs. It
supports job setup, scheduling monitoring and
control. Workloads can be classified according to EJB
names, and it supports transactional Java apps.
 Virtual Enterprise's "ODR" or On Demand Router
feature is strong. It provides a proxy server that
directs requests according to priorities and rules that
are established by the user. The workload routing is
differentiated by "traffic shaping" and policy-based
"flow control," routing and scheduling. WVE is now
available as part of the WAS Intelligent Management.
No extra license required. WVE Dynamic Clustering
enables dynamic provisioning, starting and stopping
of servers based on a predefined SLA. It may be
more advanced than WLS 12c’s Dynamic Clustering,
which involves manual starting and stopping of
servers. The equivalent Oracle Traffic Director load
balancer is On Demand Router (ODR). Oracle Traffic
Director is introduced in WebLogic 12c, addresses
several of these same capabilities.
 Virtual Enterprise's Health Monitor function (as part of
WAS Intelligent Management) monitors server and
application performance and is differentiated by a
visual administrative console to visualize problems or
the health of the network. This includes the ability of
administrators to configure rules and resulting actions
to correct problems, or alert IT. WebLogic
Management Pack EE in 12c now provides similar
capabilities.
 eXtreme Scale's distributed in-memory data cache,
includes tools to set up partitions of containers that
locate objects or "entities" in the same location. This
reduces latency involved with routing and network
traffic and could give a boost to performance.
 IBM has the ability to offer CICS, and various CICS
gateways can attract customers with mainframe
integration needs.
 IBM has no object relational offering of its own,
compared to Oracle TopLink. Oracle has mature
tooling in this area, including integration with
Coherence, JDeveloper, and other tools.
 IBM's in-memory data grid (eXtreme Scale) is less
mature, with less complete roster of features
compared to WebLogic Application Grid. This
includes the lack of .Net support and lack of real time
analytics, as well as immature continuous stream
query.
 IBM's JVM lacks support for advanced profiling,
monitoring and management through an easy to use
GUI. While IBM does have some elements of this in
technology preview versions and in its “Alphaworks”
program, there is not yet a shipping unified offering.
 IBM's real time options (WebSphere Real Time) are
limited to a specialized version of Linux running on
certain IBM hardware.
 For management, IBM often relies on multiple
consoles and multiple products (Virtual Enterprise,
Compute Grid, Tivoli, WAS consoles) as opposed to a
"one pane of glass" approach of Oracle Enterprise
Manager.
 For transaction processing, IBM favors a mainframe
(CICS) approach, with limited options for re-
platforming to open systems.

Oracle Detailed Differentiators, IBM WAS Weaknesses, and Customer Considerations

Oracle Differentiators
Performance
 WebLogic has been the consistent
leader among all application server
vendors who have submitted
SPECjAppServer 2010 benchmarks.
For more details, visit the SPECj
website for a complete listing of tests
and see appendix for graphical listing
of scores.
 Oracle WebLogic holds the highest
EjOPs score for single node, dual
IBM WAS Weaknesses
 IBM lags WebLogic in SPECj
performance in all categories,
including overall EjOPs,
EjOPs/Proc and EjOPs/Core.
Considerations (Traps)
 Do you want the optimal
performance, which is
verified by industry
benchmarks?
 Are you satisfied with
benchmarks that are only
performed on hardware
from one vendor (IBM), or
do you want the maximum
number of configurations?
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node, and multi-node systems. We are

the only app server vendor that posts
benchmarks against a clustered DB
and sees results that outperforms
others.
 Oracle world record performance
benchmarks. See here for SPECj
performance benchmarks.

RAC/Database Access  Oracle RAC support in WAS  Is Oracle RAC part of your
 With Active GridLink for RAC, relies solely on Oracle JDBC environment today? Do you
WebLogic provides comprehensive driver for failover and load want an application server
RAC support. balancing.  There does not infrastructure that more
 Using a single data source to connect appear to be any OOTB support easily integrates and takes
to RAC clusters simplifies WebLogic for RAC Services and nothing like advantage of RAC?
Server configuration, and improves an abstracted multi-data source
manageability by Isolating WebLogic support in WebLogic. Without the
Server from RAC configuration equivalent of Active GridLink for
changes. RAC means WAS has lower HA
and scalability when used in
 Runtime Connection Load Balancing of Oracle database environment.
database requests provides increased
application performance and  Development tool has limited
scalability. OOTB support for exposing
Oracle database artifacts as Web
 Fast Connection Failover enables Services (including PL/SQL).
immediate detection of RAC node
failures, speeding failover to remaining
nodes and improving system
availability.
 With WebLogic 12c, it has further
enhanced RAC integration with Web
Session Affinity and Configuration
Wizard support to further improve
application performance and
manageability.
 JDeveloper can seamlessly expose
database artifacts (packages, stored
procedures, functions, Java stored
procedures, and AQ queues and
topics), as standards based web
services with no coding. There is also a
PL/SQL wizard.

Exalogic Support  IBM has no engineered system  Do you want improved

 WebLogic Server is an important
element of Oracle engineered system
vision to provide highest performance,
quality of service and TCO for all types
of Java applications.
 Improvements to WebLogic Server's
networking, request handling and
thread management mechanisms
enable it to scale better on the multi-
core compute nodes that are
connected to the fast InfiniBand fabric
that ties all the Exalogic components
together.
 WebLogic Server's replication
offering based on WebSphere performance of your
Application Server. IBM applications while
PureApplication is not a truly simplifying management
integrated/optimized solution as and consolidation?
WAS is only bundled with it.
 IBM’s “Do It Yourself” approach of
bringing together WAS, Power
server, Tivoli management as well
as plethora of other components
means higher TCO and lower
performance and scalability, etc.
 If you are in an Exalogic deal
against IBM, please see:
10

mechanism is improved to utilize very
high I/O bandwidth (InfiniBand
40Gb/s), available for inter-process
communication between servers.
WebLogic Server replicates more of
the session data in parallel, over the
network to the secondary server, using
concurrent connections
 Active GridLink for RAC provides more
intelligent load-balancing across RAC
nodes based on the current workload
of each RAC node, faster connection
failover if a RAC node fails and more
transparent RAC node location
management.
 Result of WebLogic on Exalogic
engineered system is tremendous
application performance improvement,
e.g. 10x more web request/sec, 5x
more JMS msg/sec and 5x more Java
operations/sec.
 With 12c Oracle Traffic Director is
available on Exalogic to provide highly-
available, high-performance reverse-
proxy/caching/load-balancing for WLS
applications resulting in up to 3.5X
more throughput and 28% lower CPU
than Apache.
JMS/Messaging
 WebLogic JMS includes database
integration optimized with JDBC and
batching optimizations. This results in
much faster synchronous writes.
 JMS Extensions includes advanced
features such as “Unit of Order,” “Unit
of Work,” Store and Forward
Messaging, and Distributed
Destinations.
 JMS is included with WebLogic.
 WebLogic JMS consistently out-
performs WebSphere MQ by up to 10X
in some benchmarks. See WebLogic
JMS vs. IBM WebSphere MQ.
Oracle Confidential – For Internal Use Only
Competing against IBM
PureApplication and FactPoint:
How Oracle Exalogic Beat IBM
POWER for Running Apps &
Middleware.
 IBM provides two JMS provider  If you do not have MQ
options with WAS 1) WebSphere installed do you want to
MQ 2) WAS Service Integration have to purchase the whole
Bus (SIBus). IBM also supports MQ product in order to get
3rd party JMS providers that distributed enterprise
implement either a JCA v1.5 or messaging?
1.6 resource adapter or JMS 1.1
unified connection factories.
However, IBM often recommend
WebSphere MQ over SIBus due
to better HA, platform and
programming language support,
monitoring tools, ability to handle
large messages and performance
(see Choosing a messaging
system: WebSphere MQ vs. the
WebSphere Application Server
Service Integration Bus). The full
MQ product is sold separately at
approximately $7,775 / per 100
PVU. MQ provides a high
overhead, expensive approach to
messaging. For a comparison of
JMS vs. MQ, please see:
WebLogic JMS vs. IBM
WebSphere MQ
 For Express and WAS base
versions, there are inherent
limitations for using Derby for
11

Spring Support
 Latest Spring v3.0.x support in the
WebLogic Server, with these specific
features:
o WebLogic Spring Console
o Explicit support for Spring
Transactions
o Support for Spring Pitchfork
o Support for Spring Persistence
(JPA)
o Support for Spring Management
(JMX)
 Oracle contains a full range of Spring
features in 12c including:
o Spring DAO generation:
Automatically updates spring
configuration file
o DAO implementation includes
basic CRUD methods using HQL
or EJBQL
o Generate Spring from any ORM
mapping (JPA or Hibernate)
o Generates interfaces and
implementation for Spring DAO
and Service beans
o Supports Velocity templates for
code generation.
 For Spring IDE:
o Provides editing enhancements
and validation of Spring
configuration file
o Direct bundling of non-Oracle
project, no enhancement
o Graph view for relationships
between Spring beans
Oracle Confidential – For Internal Use Only
messaging: “For those using
embedded Derby as a messaging
data store, concurrent access can
be a concern. The embedded
Derby does not support multiple
servers running the Derby engine,
so there would be no ability to
have multiple servers
communicating with the same
shared file system.
 IBM has certified Spring running  Is Spring part of your
on WAS, and has some basic application development
features for supporting the Spring strategy? If so, do you want
Framework transaction model an application server that
within the “WebSphere has explicit support for the
UowTransactionManager” and Spring Framework?
within a Spring JMX extension.
 However, IBM does not officially
support (as in technical support)
the Spring Framework, and
leaves support issues to VMware.
There are technical articles and
best practices provided by IBM,
but they usually refer back to
Spring technology and practices.
 WAS’ Spring support has a
number of limitations. According
to IBM’s own documentation:
o “For transaction support with
Spring Framework before
Version 2.5, there is a
restricted set of transaction
attributes.
o “WebSphere Application
Server does not support the
use of the Spring Framework
class
org.springframework.transacti
on.jta.WebSphereTransaction
ManagerFactoryBean”
o “WebSphere Application
Server does not support the
use of the
NativeJdbcExtractor class
that the Spring Framework
provides”
o “To use the Spring
Framework with a JPA
implementation, it is
advisable to use JPA directly
rather than using the JPA
helper classes that are
provided with the Spring
Framework in the
org.springframework.orm.jpa
package.”
12
 Oracle Confidential – For Internal Use Only

 There is no Spring support

evident in Rational Application
Developer 9 (which support WAS
8.5.5), although there is Struts
support.

Single Pane Management  The IBM WebSphere Application  Do you want a single
 The WebLogic Server Management Server diagnostic capabilities are management framework
Pack Enterprise Edition greatly provided by Performance and single set of
improves server as well as application Management Infrastructure (PMI), dashboards for diagnosing
performance by providing unique which is limited to collecting JMX and solving problems,
functionality to automatically detect information and display it on an including pro-active
performance bottlenecks; quickly administrative console graph alerting?
diagnose these performance problems, and/or collect them to file.
and identify their root cause through  IBM would require multiple
single management console. Key products to provide the equivalent
distinguishing capabilities of WLS capability of WLS Management
Mgmt Pack EE are: Pack EE (see pricing section at
o Manage multiple Fusion end for more information). Plus
Middleware Farms, WebLogic there is an add-on Tivoli product,
Domains, and Oracle Coherence Tivoli Change and Configuration
centrally Management Database (CCMD).
This has dependencies on other
o Identify potential impact of
Tivoli products such as Tivoli
availability and performance Application Dependency
problems across tiers via a new Discovery Analysis.
routing topology viewer and
composite application dashboard  No self-tuning feature. Each WAS
server instance must be fine-
o Obtain real-time and historical in-
tuned for optimal performance on
depth JVM diagnostics including a case-by-case basis. If the traffic
garbage collection, thread, and patterns change, there is no
heap analysis without automatic adjustment.
instrumentation overhead
 For more information please see
o Trace transactions across
Oracle EM vs. IBM Tivoli and IBM
containers as well as to the Rational.
database and vice versa.
o Reduce problem resolution time
through middleware diagnostics
advisor which provides “root
cause” findings in context of the
most relevant configuration
parameters and offers suggestions
for each finding.
o Monitor services from the end
users’ perspective using service
tests or synthetic transactions
executed from remote user
locations.
o Assess the business impact of any
service problem or failure and
understand whether service level
goals have been satisfied.
o Ensure compliance with unique
business policies including
Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) and
Payment Card Industry (PCI).

13

Application Deployment
 WebLogic allows the creation of
application specific profiles with
application deployment descriptors.
There is a two-phase deployment
protocol that supports application
ordering and deployment to multiple
targets (such as the individual servers
in a WLS cluster). This deployment
succeeds or fails as a logical unit on
the available target servers.
 WLS includes zero-downtime
production redeployment. In Oracle
WLS, new client connection requests
are internally routed to the newly
deployed version of the application,
while existing client connections
continue to use the old application that
will be retired after all the existing
connections are closed. During the
rolling upgrade of a cluster, each
server in the cluster is individually
upgraded and restarted while the other
servers in the cluster continue to host
your application.
Virtual Platform Support
 OVAB makes it possible for
administrators to quickly configure and
provision entire multi-tier application
topologies onto virtualized and cloud
environments.
 OVAB provides Studio Tool for
Assembly Creation to create
appliances and assemblies, create
deployment plans and transfer &
deploy via deployer. Drag-and-drop
visual interface to create complex
topologies.
 Server Application for Deployment to
maintain assembly repository and
manage deployment lifecycle
 Automatically create bootable virtual
machine disk images with configurable
metadata that allow for deploy-time
customization of the software
component contained in the appliance.
 Package a customized operating
system distribution (e.g. Linux) into the
appliance along with the software
component.
 One-step staging of all appliance disk
images and deployment of entire
assembly onto resource pool.
 Programmatic PaaS APIs and
command line mode for automation
Oracle Confidential – For Internal Use Only
 Virtual Enterprise does allow  Do you want a single
different “editions” of applications framework for deploying
to be deployed at the same time, applications with zero
and rerouting of requests. downtime? Or do you want
However, it does require setting to deal with multiple tools
up the ODR (On Demand Router) and interfaces such as
and configuring rules around the Tivoli?
redirection. In essence production
redeployment features require the
existence of a cluster or a thick
router fronting the cluster.
 IBM runs on VMware and users
can basically use VMware’s
tooling, adding extra cost and
issues with two firms that are now
heavily competing with each
other.
 Tivoli includes VMware
monitoring.
 IBM also has an appliance,
Workload Deployer, that provides
some tools for automatic
provisioning and deployment of
WAS on VMware. Users report a
poor user interface. There is an
extra cost for this “appliance.”
 IBM hardware appliances are
harder to scale, adds another
layer of infrastructure that you
have to maintain and manage.
For development and test you
have purchase and setup
additional hardware.
14

 Broader Fusion Middleware product
support
 Oracle HTTP Server, WebLogic
Server, Coherence, Tuxedo, Service
Bus, SOA Suite, Oracle Database
(RAC and single instance) and Custom
applications.
Caching
 Oracle provides tight integration
between WLS and Coherence. This is
part of WebLogic Suite.
 Coherence is mature and feature rich,
with particularly mature .Net/C++
support, continuous stream event
queries, and management compared
to eXtreme Scale.
 With WLS Management Pack EE there
is complete visibility into data grid. This
includes performance diagnostics,
real-time and historical monitoring,
proactive events monitoring. Also
includes
o Automated provisioning
o Start/stop nodes, start/stop cluster
o Start new nodes on detecting
nodes crash
o Central UI for runtime configuration
change
 Oracle Traffic Director provides
HTTP/1.1 caching, whereas
Coherence provides high-performance
caching of application-level objects
and data. Both OTD and Coherence
are tightly integrated with WebLogic
Server.
Development Tools
 Oracle offers leading IDEs in the form
of JDeveloper, as well as Eclipse
based tooling and NetBean IDE.
 JDeveloper offers high productivity
through visual and declarative
development through ADF, a Rapid
Application Development Framework
with numerous visual tools and
infrastructure component libraries.
 JDeveloper can seamlessly expose
database artifacts (packages, stored
procedures, functions, Java stored
procedures, and AQ queues and
topics), as standards based web
services with no coding.
 ADF BC offers a database access
layer targeted at developers coming
Oracle Confidential – For Internal Use Only
 Currently, IBM offers eXtreme  Do you want the in-memory
Scale for distributed in memory data grid with the most
caching. However, there are references and the most
several shortcomings in eXtreme complete support?
Scale compared to Coherence  Do you want the option
such as support for Continuous
for .Net and C++
Query, OOTB Real-Time clients Application Grid
for real-time data or event change
applications?
notifications and session sharing
across heterogeneous application  Do you want a mature
servers and applications. platform for Application Grid
that includes analysis of
 For more information, see IBM data and analysis of
eXtreme Scale compete guide.
streams of data, without
 IBM offers Dynacache and Edge resorting to persisting data
Components as part of WAS. to a database?
Dynacache, which is described  Do you want the option of
by IBM as application server- integration of your
based caching and is in the base Application Grid with object
WAS edition, and Proxy Server relational technology?
caching, which is located in the
Edge Components module for
WAS ND. In general there are
two sets of interfaces for
configuring the two caches,
setting policies, and monitoring.
The dual layer approach presents
overhead and complexity for
users.
 RAD is a paid product (except  Do you want the choice of a
WAS for Developers). There is a fully feature Java IDE or a
basic tool based on RAD in the leading edge Eclipse
box, however, according to IBM development tool?
documentation “it does not  Do you need support for
include the productivity-enhancing
Struts, Spring and other
features and visual editors found programming frameworks?
in Rational Application Developer
for WebSphere Software 9. It also
does not include Rational
ClearCase, Crystal Reports, UML
modeling, Struts, or JSF.”
 IBM supports Struts in RAD, but
no out of the box support for
Spring is available on RAD.
 No real visual and declarative
rapid application development
environment, no rapid application
development framework.
15
 Oracle Confidential – For Internal Use Only

from a 4GL background with  No equivalent to ADF in IBM

knowledge in SQL
 Complete ADF mobile support is
available on WebLogic.
WAS product. ADF is a
differentiator of WLS.
 Development time using IBM
RAD is long and with very
negative feedback from
developers.

Challenge IBM with TCO Arguments

Use the following points to back up claims that IBM has higher TCO than Oracle:
1. Oracle has a suite-based approach to middleware, including application server, which brings down costs. Please
note the full set of products in the WebLogic Suite. IBM sells products piecemeal and puts together ad-hoc
bundles, which is really just a pricing tactic with minimal integration. Oracle’s goal is better integration between
components in the suite, which reduces complexity and tends to bring down TCO. Also the suite based approach
can put a more effective cap on the products needed to build solutions.
IBM is emulating Oracle and is adding additional components into WAS Network Deployment (WAS ND). WAS ND
8.5.5 includes WebSphere Virtual Enterprise (intelligent management pack), WebSphere Compute Grid (batch
processing), and full entitlement to WebSphere eXtreme Scale data grid.
2. Within WebLogic application server, there is a heavy emphasis on manageability, lessening the tasks of IT staff.
Examples include the self-tuning features and frameworks for diagnostics, deployment, and security. These lessen
the need for manual intervention and bring down labor costs associated with the WebLogic products. More manual
intervention may be needed to set up similar functionality with WAS, bringing up TCO.
3. IBM often relies on multiple consoles and multiple products (Virtual Enterprise, Compute Grid, Tivoli, WAS
consoles) as opposed to a "one pane of glass" approach of Enterprise Manager (EM). Additionally, IBM has
multiple products with overlapping functionalities with complex dependency and inconsistent integration leading
customers to buy many SKUs. This not only adds to licensing cost but it means higher learning curve and higher
cost for management.
4. There are often complex programmatic approaches in many IBM WAS products. For example, within eXtreme
Scale, it is necessary to set up rather complex partitions. Querying, searching and performing analytics is also
more programmatic, requiring setting up tags with entitymanager. By contrast, Oracle has a much easier to set up
querying engine, with less need for programmatically configuring all details. Similarly within Compute Grid and
Virtual Enterprise, it is necessary to set up partitions for routing jobs and achieving load balancing. Such
complexity brings up labor costs and total TCO of IBM WAS based solutions. No such partitioning is necessary for
similar functions for WebLogic.
5. IBM WAS based projects, which usually require/need several additional products and services as many customers
and analysts have attested to (see Crimson TCO report and Analyst section below for Gartner comments). This is
due to a number of reasons, including functionality overlaps and spread over multiple products with variable level
of integration among them, requiring more services to put together the solutions. Also, IBM’s account reps are
incented to sell services, and there is a wide range of packaged services offerings available for them to sell. In
essence, as noted by many analysts, IBM remains a services company, as evidenced by their earnings reports.
While Oracle offers services to customers, in general Oracle has a more tightly focused set of middleware
products that don’t require as many services.
6. IBM often leverage WAS to protect and extend the use of mainframes instead migration to lower TCO open
platforms. Oracle on the other hand emphasizes open systems solutions. IBM has no open systems transaction
processing monitor such as Oracle Tuxedo. Oracle Tuxedo allows customers to migrate their mainframe apps to
open system without any modification to lower cost.
7. Within JDeveloper, there is a rapid application development framework (ADF), which lessens time to
implementation. Again the time and money saved can bring down TCO for WebLogic Suite. IBM RAD does not
have an ADF equivalent. WAS for Developers comes with free Rational Application Developer for WebSphere
licenses for developers, but does not include components like ClearCase or UML. Unlike JDeveloper, Rational
tools are additional cost ($126/user) for the other WAS editions. IBM RAD is also harder to learn and use. Many
developers complain about its heavyweight and high learning curve.

16
 Oracle Confidential – For Internal Use Only

How to Compete with IBM WAS (Internal)

 Dispel IBM’s pricing FUD. Use this document: Response to IBM WebSphere vs. Oracle WebLogic Whitepaper,
as IBM will surely bring up Oracle pricing in your deals.
 Use Oracle Database and RAC as a selling point. IBM promotes DB2 in many of its products and in fact some
WebSphere products and technologies require it and has no special integration between WAS and Oracle
DB/RAC. Oracle has expanded the integration points between WebLogic and Oracle DB/RAC and will do more in
the future. Do not hesitate to use this as an advantage in Oracle DB accounts.
 Use IBM’s Service Focus Against It. Note that Oracle is a software company and not interested in long-term
pricey consulting service engagements, but instead on focused projects to meet the customer’s requirements.
Capitalize on customer’s negative experiences with excessive costs associated with IBM consulting service
engagements.
 Leverage Applications. Like database, there are links between WebLogic and Oracle apps today and that will
only become stronger with the release of Fusion applications. Ally with Oracle apps sales teams to form
relationships with CxOs and present business level arguments. Present pre-packaged Oracle applications
adapters as a differentiator in Oracle accounts
 Divide and Conquer. Even in IBM shops, IBM selling groups are often in competition. In some cases, it pays off to
take one technology or group (mainframe, Rational, hardware, etc.), emphasize Oracle WebLogic and Tuxedo
interoperability with it, and “ally” with managers/advocates in this area, and sell another technology to complement
it. The same can be done with GBS services group, on occasion.
 Emphasize Neutrality. While WebLogic has special integrations with Oracle applications and database, it is not
tied to these Oracle products. WebLogic is standards-based and can be deployed in a standalone or mixed
environment. Use the WebLogic products as a way to bolster Oracle's neutral approach to middleware that can
accommodate a heterogeneous mix of applications and back end technologies.
 Avoid "Checkbox Wars" in presentations or RFPs. IBM has lots of products and lots of checks. Go Beyond the
checkboxes and talk about how the pieces work together and TCO.
 Unified Suite. Talk about the benefits of our unified suites, not many disparate products with different
architectures. More importantly, the unified management across the WebLogic Suite is superior to IBM’s disparate
management tools for their ala carte approach. IBM is trying to emulate Oracle’s suite-based approach and is
packaging additional components in WAS ND.
 Mainframe Opportunity. IBM does not have a lock on these accounts. IBM mainframe customers are a prime
opportunity as they are looking for ways to move away from costly processing fees and onto an open platform.
Leverage Tuxedo and its "re-platforming" or "re-hosting" capabilities. However, please note IBM has TXSeries,
which allows mainframe customers to run CICS on open platforms. This product has been around for many years
since late 90s and has now been revived with new investment. Previously, it was a strong competing product to
Tuxedo.
 Ease of Development. Development time using IBM RAD is long and with very negative feedback from
developers. Most WAS developers would tell you that IBM RAD is heavyweight, complex and very resource
intensive. Most developers would prefer something lighter weight like Eclipse or the use of Maven.

17
 Oracle Confidential – For Internal Use Only

Analysts Proof Points

Source: Gartner, Magic Quadrant for On-Premises Application Platforms

18
 Oracle Confidential – For Internal Use Only

IBM WebSphere Pricing

To determine the price of IBM software, you need to multiply the RVU/core or PVU/core by the number of RVU or PVU
for that processor type. For example, for E5-4600 (Intel Xeon Sandy Bridge EP processor), the PVUs per core is 100.
So you multiply the PVU/core value by 100 to determine the cost of the software (per core).

1. RVU: Resource value unit (RVU) licensing provides the means for pricing structures to be based on the number of
activated processor cores used or managed by a product. RVU is the license price per core. See:

 http://www-01.ibm.com/software/lotus/passportadvantage/about_software_licensing.html
 http://www-01.ibm.com/common/ssi/rep_ca/5/897/ENUS211-015/ENUS211-015.PDF

2. PVU: The number of PVU entitlements required is based on the processor technology (defined within the PVU
Table by Processor Vendor, Brand, Type and Model Number) and the number of processors made available to the
Program. IBM continues to define a processor, for the purpose of PVU-based licensing, to be each processor core
on a chip. A dual-core processor chip, for example, has two processor cores. You have to multiply the Per PVU
price by the number PUV entitlement from the PVU Table to calculate the price per core. See:

 https://www-01.ibm.com/software/lotus/passportadvantage/pvu_licensing_for_customers.html

In October 2013, IBM announced it has made two updates to the WebSphere Application Server licensing:

 A new 12-month fixed term license options for the following WebSphere Application Server: WebSphere
Application Server Network Deployment (ND), WebSphere Application Server (Base), WebSphere Application
Server Express, and WebSphere Application Server Liberty Core. The 12-month fixed term license (i) provides
flexibility for projects that have a limited duration, (ii) gives the option to renew the term license or discontinue use
of the software at the end of the fixed term, and (iii) includes Software Subscription and Support for the period of
the license. As the table below indicates, the cost of a one year Pay As You Go license is less than half of the
perpetual license. Therefore, if a customer has a short term project, they can dramatically reduce their costs using
the fixed term license.

19
 Oracle Confidential – For Internal Use Only

IBM WAS Edition Perpetual License (in $ USD) Pay As You Go (Per Core)
Core (PVU) Socket 20 Users 1 Day 1 Year 1 Hour on
IBM Cloud
WAS ND $196.00 N/A N/A $191.67 $83.25 $1.11
WAS Base $52.25 $13,300 N/A $51.09 $21.50 $0.53
WAS Express $26.00 N/A $649.00 $25.52 $10.75 BYOL
WAS Liberty Core $26.00 N/A $649.00 $25.50 $10.75 BYOL

Note: It is conceivable that IBM will use the 12-month fixed term license options to (1) lure greenfield customers
with try-and-buy of low upfront cost and low Pay As You Go pricing structure, and (2) target existing WebSphere
customers who have the need for increased use of WebSphere for specific short-term duration, without committing
a large sum for perpetual licensing cost.

Remind your customers that Oracle also allows customers to buy term licenses, which are based on a fixed
percentage per year calculated from the perpetual license. Oracle’s annual term licenses are available from 1 to 5
years: 1 year - 20% of list, 2 year - 35% of list, 3 year - 50% of list, 4 year - 60% of list, and 5 year - 70% of list.
Support for all term licenses is 22% of net perpetual fee (see Oracle pricelist). If the term license is part of a larger
contract that is qualified for a 10% E-Business discount, the one year term net license price would be even lower.

 Removal of restriction to the clustering for WAS Liberty Core, WAS Express and WAS Base.
The terms are updated for Version 8.5.5 of these products to allow for an unlimited number of profiles for load
balancing and failover. IBM used to allow clustering of up to two WAS Express JVMs and up to five WAS Base
JVMs. Now customers can cluster an unlimited number of JVMs for WAS Liberty Core, WAS Express and WAS
Base (WAS ND never had any clustering restrictions). This clustering is for HTTPSession failover and HTTP
server load balancing. This allows one to merge HTTP server plugin configurations using the automatic tool (so
one does not have to edit the XML config file by hand) and provides for workload management across many
instances of WAS.

Note: The removal of the clustering restriction for WAS Liberty Core, WAS Express and WAS Base is certainly
beneficial to some customers. But it provides only basic clustering capabilities – limited to only HTTPSession
failover, HTTP server load balancing, and HTTP traffic workload management. It is different than the full clustering
capabilities in WAS ND. For full clustering capabilities, customers are still required to upgrade to the more
expensive WAS ND.

IBM WAS Pricing (as of October 2013):

 WAS Express: $2,600 / Core, assuming 100 PVU
 WAS for Developers: $977 / user
 WAS-Application Server (Base): $5,225 / Core, assuming 100 PVU
 WAS Network Deployment (ND): $19,600 / Core, assuming 100 PVU (it includes WVE, WCG and WXS)
 WAS Virtual Enterprise (WVE): $9,450 / Core Node, and $15,600 / Core for Controller, assuming 100 PVU
 WAS ND Compute Grid (WCG): $9,450 / Core, assuming 100 PVU
 WAS eXtreme Scale (WXS): $15,700 / Core, assuming 100 PVU
 WAS Hypervisor Edition (WHE): starting at $21,300 / Core, assuming 100 PVU
 WAS Real Time: $8,575 / Core, assuming 100 PVU

For a pricing comparison on a suite level with comparable IBM products, see Response to IBM WebSphere vs. Oracle
WebLogic Whitepaper .

20
Oracle Confidential – For Internal Use Only

21