What is the difference between Web Servers and Application Servers?
A web server is a light weight service designed to support static content with different MIME types.
Web servers support browser based clients with published content and of course provide the required security cover. However this definition has expanded over a period of time.
Web Servers have graduated to provide users with the ability to support plug-ins what are called as Web Components like ASP, JSP, Servlets, CGI...Etc which brings Web Servers close to what an Application Server is designed for, to support transactions and dynamic content.
But the difference is still very obvious; while Application Servers provide enterprise level business services such as
Web servers support browser based clients with published content and of course provide the required security cover. However this definition has expanded over a period of time.
Web Servers have graduated to provide users with the ability to support plug-ins what are called as Web Components like ASP, JSP, Servlets, CGI...Etc which brings Web Servers close to what an Application Server is designed for, to support transactions and dynamic content.
But the difference is still very obvious; while Application Servers provide enterprise level business services such as
- Session Management
- Distributed Protocol support such as JRMI or JMS
- Messaging Services
- Persistence management
- Transaction Management...etc
Comments
that was a great piece of information for the basic understanding of application server as well as web server.
What are the basic or major differences between the various application servers available?
Posted by: somnath | August 11, 2006 09:18 PM
What are the different Web servers and App servers out in the industry?
Posted by: Kannika | August 11, 2006 10:38 PM
Somnath,
Different App server vendors have focused on different priorities; as a result an app server is either applicable or not applicable depending on the given requirements.
App servers like IONA and Borland are more conducive for Telecom platforms while Oracle App server, Web Sphere, Web logic are more suitable for E-commerce kind of applications.
You also have JBoss which is more suitable for open source platforms.
For the Microsoft platform there is
Commerce Server for e-commerce apps, Share point for document management and sharing, Host Integration server to interface with main frames or ERPs, BizTalk for workflow management...Etc
For some reason Microsoft claims IIS to be an app server, which I strongly disagree.
Hope this answers your question.
Ashok
Posted by: Ashok | August 13, 2006 07:24 AM
Kannika,
My response to Somnath answers your second part of the question.
Some of the web servers include
Microsoft Internet Information Server, Apache, JRun, Jetty, Nexus, Tomcat, WebCore...etc
Most of the App servers are also web servers, they are generally a super set.
This link below has an all-time comparison of the frontline players in the web server market.
http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2006/01/05/january_2006_web_server_survey.html
Ashok
Posted by: Ashok | August 13, 2006 07:38 AM
Thanks Ashok,
Is it possible to use web servers for e-commerce purpose?
Sure, you are welcome.
Yes. You can use web server for e-commerce. This is generally for the light weight online stores; you might want to scale to more powerful app servers when the load and the concurrency increase.
Ashok
Posted by: somnath | August 21, 2006 07:27 PM