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Web server vs Application server

 
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Basic q:

What EXACTLY is the difference between a webserver and a application server?
 
Brian Percival
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ya ya.. That's the first link that came up when I googled But it confused me more..

From what I understood one thing is clear,

--a webserver is a subset of an application server.

If a server can generate dynamic content for the clients, is it a webserver of application server?

Is Tomcat a webserver or application server?

In other words, if a server has servlet/jsp running capabilities, is it a web server or application server?

thanks,
Brian
 
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Tomcat is primarily a servlet container which extends the functionality of a web server. (Since a servlet container can't do anything without a web server, Tomcat includes its own web server for convenience.)

In J2EE terms, an application server usually means it also has an EJB container. An application server handles things like database connections, lifecycle management, transactions and so on. I don't think this is necessarily a "legal" definition, it just seems to me that this is what most people mean when they say "application server."

Clearly though, you can build robust, scalable Java applications without EJB. If you have Tomcat and Apache, for instance, using Struts and Hibernate frameworks, would you call that an application server?
 
Brian Percival
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Greetings from Hogwarts,

Hussain, thank you very much for replying.. It helped me alot. I appreciate it..
 
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Hope this helps


Webserver
=========
- Provides access to static content(html, etc.) by just sending the file to the client.
- Provides accesss to dynamic content by delegating the processing of dynamic web pages like jsp and asp to appropriate engines like servlet container and ASP engine respectively.

Application Server
==================
- A Webserver with the ability to deploy and manage applications and expose business logic to the client.
 
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Web server usually serves http request while application server deals with various sorts of protocols to serve. So in this context web server is a subset of application server. But I really dont feel comfortable with the definition that applicaiton server is a web server+something.
 
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Originally posted by Ashik uzzaman:
But I really dont feel comfortable with the definition that applicaiton server is a web server+something.



I confirm that also... Web Server may stay outside of application server as well... Then so-called something is alone in applicaiton server...
 
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Application server does not necessary be the Web server, although usually, big vendors implement their application server in this way

Nick
 
Don't get me started about those stupid light bulbs.
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