Hi,
Sorry for the long wait... I didn't watch the topic (mea culpa).
Resource Mapping:
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The biggest problem I have right now is the fact that the mapping of the resources, roles, etc cannot be done dynamically in the console. There are two part to that.
- At Deploy time: In IBM WS, It is very easy to see what an application need when deploying in the GUI because there is a part in the deployment wizard that ask for the mapping (giving the default mapping but giving the deployer the opportunity to change it). This is relevant for the resources if the scheme employed in the production is not the same as the one used in Test/Integration (security reason). It is especially useful for mapping the security roles to ldap (or other) concrete user container.
- At Run time: Changing the mappings of installed applications is not something that is done a lot and we do it only for testing or fail-over scenarios, but when you have to do it, it's VERY cool to be able to do it in the GUI.
I know everything can be done before by editing the ear deployment descriptor files. It's just a lot more convenient to be able to do it through the GUI.
Variable
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There should be a possibility to create variables (-D stuff) and use them in either the applications or components. There should also have a hierarchy (domain > cluster > server > module). There should also be a possibility to map constants from the Description manager to variables defined on the server. I know this is mor than JEE standards but It would help...
I haven't REALLY made an in-depth evaluation of the different GUIs but that's what I have found while working on the V2.
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Now about the Documentation:
First of all, when you get to the root web site of GlassFish, you can quickly get a download of the latest version of the server... But you don't really see where to get the informations about WHAT the server is and how it works... I really had "to search" for the docs (okay, they can be found, but if you ask me, they should be top level too)!
The main problem I had, was that there are a lot of documentation but not a lot are about managing the server and the one that are, are way too high level to be of real use. I know it's unfair to compare the whole GlassFish (open source, community based, etc) to big firms like IBM or BEA but I just wanted to compare the Administration Guide with the WebSphere Application Server V6.1: System Management and Configuration redbook. The difference in quantity and, more importantly quality is in my opinion huge.
I do NOT want to say that IBM WS is better (believe me, I have enough problem with it) but the documentation is really high quality. I didn't compare it with concrete documents to BEA because I'm not as good on it as on WS.
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Just to bring it a little in a better perspective... I'm DEFINETLY for GlassFish. I think the product and community are great and the server farm I'm building will have V2 on it. I'd prefer however, not to have to search blogs all the time to find answers to simple questions but to be able to read about it in the documentation of the server.
hope this helps
jeremie
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