You'll also find the ability to mix versions of WebSphere within a cell, a new Administration Console look and feel, with the ability to customize the console, and an integrated Web Performance Viewer.

In addition, Enterprise Deployment brings TransportChannel Services, providing higher connection rates with non-blocking IO, Web Container and Message improvements, such as sharing ports and thread pools, all new JMS embedded support, including persistent messaging, clustered queues and connectivity to MQ backbone, High Availability featuring hot standby, peer failover, enhanced Data Replication, improving performance and scaling, Java Web Start support, and better documentation.

Summary
Beginning with WebSphere 4.0, IBM has continued to make great strides in each new release of WebSphere, and WebSphere 6 continues to follow that path. With your input, IBM and WebSphere continue to be enhanced to meet your requirements. This release certainly does address many of your concerns with installations, delivery of standards, and improved and simplified development, deployment and performance.

Bryon Kataoka is CTO and a consulting principal for Commerce Solutions, Inc. at http://www.commercesolutions.com, one of the largest WebSphere consulting practices in the SF/Bay Area. He's the lead-author of the WebSphere 4.0 Application Server Bible (JWiley), and technical advisor to the three Northern California WebSphere Users Groups. If not consulting on the latest WebSphere releases you might find him making presentations at IBM conferences, sipping or making fine California wines, skiing in Lake Tahoe or rolling in a 40 foot putt for par. For more information on how Commerce Solutions, Inc. can help with your WebSphere, Portal or Java/J2EE project, please contact sales@commercesolutions.com.