An application foundation optimized to take advantage of the unique qualities of service of IBM System z® hardware and the z/OS operating system, WebSphere Application Server for z/OS offers functional equivalence to WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment, along with additional capabilities such as prioritized workload management, advanced transactional integrity, intense scalability, and data and workload collocation, made possible through tight integration with IBM System z and z/OS.
Speed delivery of new applications and services
Java EE 6 programming model: Compliance with the latest Java EE specification which delivers ease of use and productivity enhancements and improves iterative development cycles for testing applications over previous version of the specification.
Support for Java Platform, Support for Java Platform, Standard Edition 6.0, including the latest performance, security, and reliability enhancements delivered by the IBM Java SDK for z/OS V6.0.1 to accelerate Java application innovation.
OSGi Applications programming model: Rapidly build, deploy, manage, and maintain modular applications using Java EE and OSGi technologies through versioned, isolated, and reusable OSGi bundles.
Web 2.0 Mobile and programming model: Deliver richer user experiences and extend the reach of enterprise applications to desktop web and mobile web applications to improve customer satisfaction.
Java Batch programming model: Reuse existing skills to quickly and cost effectively develop, deploy and manage batch applications. Higher throughput and lower resource consumption for Java batch processing on IBM z/OS when collocated with data subsystems
XML programming model: Enable application developers to simply and rapidly process XML data and documents using World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) open-standards-based XML technologies.
Service Component Architecture (SCA) programming model: Increase reuse and accelerate innovative application delivery and management in a SOA.
Communications Enabled Applications (CEA) programming model: Simply and rapidly deliver rich and interactive user experiences by adding communications capabilities, like click to call and cobrowsing, to web applications.
Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) programming model: Develop, deliver, and manage powerful large-scale mission-critical converged communications services and applications.
Rapidly develop RESTful web applications through support for RESTful views of EJB applications and support for Contexts and Dependency Injection for Java (CDI) with JAX-RS.
Accelerate development speed through the separately available IBM Rational Application Developer for WebSphere Software, with integrated programming model support for building and testing applications for WebSphere Application Server.
Enhance reuse and extend application asset life when integrating SAP Software, Siebel Business Applications, Oracle E-Business Suite, JD Edwards EnterpriseOne, and PeopleSoft Enterprise packaged applications with a WebSphere Application Server application. A development and unit testing license to WebSphere Adapters V7.5 is provided with WebSphere Application Server to speed application integration and development.
Improve operational efficiency and reliability
Realize greater TCO with performance enhancements to Java EE applications, OSGi applications, SOA applications, product startup times, application server creation times and installation times for typical business critical large applications.
Simplify local and centralized install and maintenance with automated prerequisite and interdependency checking for both distributed and z/OS environments using IBM Installation Manager.
Reduce disk footprint requirements through enhanced component install granularity to optionally select whether to install WebSphere Application Server components, such as thin clients, EJB deploy and language packs
Reduce developer time and effort during the edit-compile-debug development lifecycle with monitored directory-based install, update and uninstall of Java EE applications.
Enhanced operational efficiency and business agility through ability to administratively extend OSGi Applications-based running applications with new functionality without changing the application artifact, to enable independent application extension and evolution as business needs change. Additionally, update a running OSGi Applications-based application by only impacting those bundles affected by the change, enabling rapid update of deployed OSGi Applications.
Save time on problem determination and uncover potential performance bottlenecks by using the new High Performance Extensible Logging (HPEL) binary log and trace framework.
Increase administrator productivity through automated cloning of nodes based on existing node configuration, job manager updates to manage profiles, and improved ease of locating and editing configurations
Achieve enhanced high availability for messaging applications through improved integration with IBM WebSphere MQ and enhanced transactional integrity through tighter IBM DB2 integration.
Reduce the cost of deploying and managing geographically dispersed applications through Flexible Management features in WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment to centrally administer applications across WebSphere Application Server, WebSphere Application Server - Express and WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment environments.
Simply administrative tasks related to multi-component applications through WebSphere Business Level Applications
Improve time to value and reduce risk of down time through migration support for WebSphere Application Server V6.0, V6.1 and V7.0 configuration information using command-line tools and the GUI-based Configuration Migration Tool. Additionally, accelerate application migration from alternative application servers and from WebSphere Application Server V5.1, V6.0, V6.1, or V7.0 to WebSphere Application Server V8.0 using the separately available, no charge, WebSphere Application Server Migration Toolkit.
Increase security and control
Lower risks through end-to-end security hardening enhancements including security updates defined in the Java EE 6 specifications, additional security features enabled by default and improved security configuration reporting.
Improve ease of use and control through automation that allows administrators to copy a security domain, along with users and groups, at the global level
Enhance security and auditability for applications requiring distributed and z/OS system access through the ability to use z/OS System Authorization Facility (SAF) security to associate a SAF user ID with a distributed identity.
Improve security and ease of use through the simplified exchange of user identity and attributes in Web Services using Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) Token through WS-Security SAML Token Profile 1.1.
Achieve faster time-to-value when delivering single sign on web services- based applications though ability to generate SAML tokens, request SAML tokens from an external Security Token Service (STS) and propagate SAML tokens in SOAP messages using the Web Services Security application programming interfaces (WSS API).
Improve component reuse and agility through ability to configure a web service application to interoperate with multiple endpoint services, each with potentially different configuration requirements, through specifying multiple policy sets and bindings specific to each endpoint service.
Improve security and interoperability through ability to generate and consume tokens using WS-Trust Issue and WS-Trust Validate requests for JAX-WS Web services that use Web Services Security. As a result of these requests, the login module issues, validates, or exchanges tokens with a WS-Trust Security Token Service providers, such as IBM Tivoli Federated Identity Manager.
Minimize cross-site scripting vulnerabilities using new HTTPOnly browser attribute for single sign-on applications to prevent client-side applications from accessing cookies.
Achieve greater ease of use through administration, and security enhancements for Java API for XML Web Services (JAX-WS) based applications.
Investment Protection
Protect investments in applications through reuse and integration. From service-enabling legacy assets to inventing new ones, our technology makes your business accessible to new users in innovative ways, giving you immediate insight and interaction with partners, suppliers and customers and increasing your return on investment.
Web services support including WS-Business Activity, WS-Notification and WS-I Basic Security Profile, helps you more securely extend your reach and gives better application portability and control. On top of already extensive Web services support, Web 2.0 and a powerful Java Messaging Service (JMS) engine help you extend the reach of your existing applications and maximize asset utilization
Pre-integrated support for WebSphere MQ and tight integration with WebSphere ESB — the combination of these products form a powerful Enterprise Service Bus that can integrate the most diverse set of applications and environments
Deployment manager enables you to manage previous versions of WebSphere Application Server so that you can adopt newer infrastructure as your plans require
Multi-cell support and compatibility features offer the ability to seamlessly adopt newer infrastructure and run applications developed in previous Java Enterprise Edition versions (backwards compatible to JEE v1.2) for WebSphere Application Server to eliminate intensive cost and resource requirements
Popular WebSphere Application Server for z/OS downloads
Redbook: WebSphere Application Server: Planning, Concepts, and Design
This IBM Redbooks® publication discusses the concepts, planning, and design of WebSphere Application Server environments.
- Redbook: WebSphere Application Server Administration and Configuration Guide
This IBM® Redbooks® publication provides system administrators and developers with the knowledge to configure a WebSphere® Application Server runtime environment, to package and deploy applications, and to perform ongoing management of the WebSphere environment.
- RedBook: WebSphere Application Server for z/OS Administration
In this Redbook publication, we look at the administration features unique to WebSphere Application Server for z/OS.
- eBook: WebSphere Smart SOA Application Foundation
This eBook will demonstrate how companies can modernize their application infrastructure to work smarter, reduce costs and roll out new services faster for every size business, no matter what industry you’re in.

