What is an Application Server ?
Application Servers provide the underlying core functionality necessary for the development and deployment of business-driven application.
Application Servers can potentially service tens of thousands of concurrent users in real-time. Application Servers are mainly used in Distributed Environment such as Stock Trading System or Banking application.
In Application Server a new layer of functions and services between Web servers and underlying applications and databases is added.
An Application Server speeds application development and relieves developers of the effort and expense of creating these crucial services on their own
Load balancing
Fault tolerance
Web Services
Legacy integration
Transaction management
Security
Messaging
Multi-threading
Persistence
Database connectivity
Resource pooling
Development, testing, and packaging facilities
J2EE based Application Servers
l BEA WebLogic Java Application Server
l IBM WebSphere Java Application Server ( WSAD )
l Oracle 9i Java Application Server
l Sun ONE Java Application Server (iPlanet)
l HP Application Server (HP-AS) (Bluestone)
l JBoss Application Server
l GlassFish Application Server for JavaEE 5
l Enhydra Application Server
J2EE Components
l Java Servlets & Java Server Pages (JSP)
l Enterprise Java Beans (EJB)
l Java Transaction API (JTA)
l Java Transaction Service (JTS)
l Java API for XML Parsing (JAXP)
l Java Messaging Service (JMS)
l Message Driven Beans (MDB)
l Remote Method Invocation (RMI)
l Java Database Connection 2 (JDBC2)
l Java Connector Architecture (JCA)
l Java Naming and Directory Interface (JNDI)
l JavaBeans Activation Framework (JAF)
For Java EE 5 components visit : http://java.sun.com/javaee/technologies/
An application server exposes business logic to client applications through various protocols, possibly including HTTP.
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