Application server

Last updated October 19, 2023

An application server is a server that hosts applications^[1] or software that delivers a business application through a communication protocol.^[2]

An application server framework is a service layer model. It includes software components available to a software developer through an application programming interface. An application server may have features such as clustering, fail-over, and load-balancing. The goal is for developers to focus on the business logic.^[3]

Java application servers

Jakarta EE (formerly Java EE or J2EE) defines the core set of API and features of Java application servers.

The Jakarta EE infrastructure is partitioned into logical containers.

EJB container: Enterprise Beans are used to manage transactions. According to the Java BluePrints, the business logic of an application resides in Enterprise Beans—a modular server component providing many features, including declarative transaction management, and improving application scalability.
Web container: the web modules include Jakarta Servlets and Jakarta Server Pages (JSP).
JCA container (Jakarta Connectors)
JMS provider (Jakarta Messaging)

Commercial Java application servers have been dominated by WebLogic Application Server by Oracle, WebSphere Application Server from IBM and the open source JBoss Enterprise Application Platform (JBoss EAP) by Red Hat. Another example of web server which can be used as an application server for the Java EE ecosystem is Apache Tomcat.

Microsoft

Microsoft's .NET positions their middle-tier applications and services infrastructure in the Windows Server operating system and the .NET Framework technologies in the role of an application server.^[4] The Windows Application Server role includes Internet Information Services (IIS) to provide web server support, the .NET Framework to provide application support, ASP.NET to provide server side scripting, COM+ for application component communication, Message Queuing for multithreaded processing, and the Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) for application communication.^[5]

PHP application servers

PHP application servers run and manage PHP applications.

Zend Server, built by Zend, provides application server functionality for the PHP-based applications.
appserver.io, built by TechDivision GmbH is a multithreaded application server for PHP written in PHP.
RoadRunner, built by Spiral Scout is a high-performance PHP application server, load-balancer, and process manager written in Go.

Third-party

Mono (a cross platform open-source implementation of .NET supporting nearly all its features, with the exception of Windows OS-specific features), sponsored by Microsoft and released under the MIT License

Mobile application servers

Mobile application servers provide data delivery to mobile devices.

Mobile features

Core capabilities of mobile application services include

Data routing– data is packaged in smaller (REST) objects with some business logic to minimize demands on bandwidth and battery
Orchestration– transactions and data integration across multiple sources
Authentication service– secure connectivity to back-end systems is managed by the mobile middleware
Off-line support– allows users to access and use data even though the device is not connected
Security– data encryption, device control, SSL, call logging

Mobile challenges

Although most standards-based infrastructure (including SOAs) are designed to connect to any independent of any vendor, product or technology, most enterprises have trouble connecting back-end systems to mobile applications, because mobile devices add the following technological challenges:^[6]

Limited resources – mobile devices have limited power and bandwidth
Intermittent connectivity – cellular service and wifi coverage is often not continuous
Difficult to secure^[7] – mobility and BYOD practices make it hard to secure mobile devices

Deployment models

An application server can be deployed:

Related Research Articles

Jakarta Enterprise Beans is one of several Java APIs for modular construction of enterprise software. EJB is a server-side software component that encapsulates business logic of an application. An EJB web container provides a runtime environment for web related software components, including computer security, Java servlet lifecycle management, transaction processing, and other web services. The EJB specification is a subset of the Java EE specification.

The Jakarta Messaging API is a Java application programming interface (API) for message-oriented middleware. It provides generic messaging models, able to handle the producer–consumer problem, that can be used to facilitate the sending and receiving of messages between software systems. Jakarta Messaging is a part of Jakarta EE and was originally defined by a specification developed at Sun Microsystems before being guided by the Java Community Process.

Jakarta EE, formerly Java Platform, Enterprise Edition and Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE), is a set of specifications, extending Java SE with specifications for enterprise features such as distributed computing and web services. Jakarta EE applications are run on reference runtimes, that can be microservices or application servers, which handle transactions, security, scalability, concurrency and management of the components they are deploying.

A web container is the component of a web server that interacts with Jakarta Servlets. A web container is responsible for managing the lifecycle of servlets, mapping a URL to a particular servlet and ensuring that the URL requester has the correct access-rights. A web container handles requests to servlets, Jakarta Server Pages (JSP) files, and other types of files that include server-side code. The Web container creates servlet instances, loads and unloads servlets, creates and manages request and response objects, and performs other servlet-management tasks. A web container implements the web component contract of the Jakarta EE architecture. This architecture specifies a runtime environment for additional web components, including security, concurrency, lifecycle management, transaction, deployment, and other services.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">WebObjects</span> Java web application server and framework originally developed by NeXT Software

WebObjects was a Java web application server and a server-based web application framework originally developed by NeXT Software, Inc.

Java Management Extensions (JMX) is a Java technology that supplies tools for managing and monitoring applications, system objects, devices and service-oriented networks. Those resources are represented by objects called MBeans. In the API, classes can be dynamically loaded and instantiated. Managing and monitoring applications can be designed and developed using the Java Dynamic Management Kit.

In computing, Oracle Application Development Framework, usually called Oracle ADF, provides a Java framework for building enterprise applications. It provides visual and declarative approaches to Java EE development. It supports rapid application development based on ready-to-use design patterns, metadata-driven and visual tools.

A web framework (WF) or web application framework (WAF) is a software framework that is designed to support the development of web applications including web services, web resources, and web APIs. Web frameworks provide a standard way to build and deploy web applications on the World Wide Web. Web frameworks aim to automate the overhead associated with common activities performed in web development. For example, many web frameworks provide libraries for database access, templating frameworks, and session management, and they often promote code reuse. Although they often target development of dynamic web sites, they are also applicable to static websites.

GlassFish is an open-source Jakarta EE platform application server project started by Sun Microsystems, then sponsored by Oracle Corporation, and now living at the Eclipse Foundation and supported by Payara, Oracle and Red Hat. The supported version under Oracle was called Oracle GlassFish Server. GlassFish is free software and was initially dual-licensed under two free software licences: the Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL) and the GNU General Public License (GPL) with the Classpath exception. After having been transferred to Eclipse, GlassFish remained dual-licensed, but the CDDL license was replaced by the Eclipse Public License (EPL).

Mobile app development is the act or process by which a mobile app is developed for one or more mobile devices, which can include personal digital assistants (PDA), enterprise digital assistants (EDA), or mobile phones. Such software applications are specifically designed to run on mobile devices, taking numerous hardware constraints into consideration. Common constraints include CPU architecture and speeds, available memory (RAM), limited data storage capacities, and considerable variation in displays and input methods. These applications can be pre-installed on phones during manufacturing or delivered as web applications, using server-side or client-side processing to provide an "application-like" experience within a web browser.

Jakarta Persistence is a Jakarta EE application programming interface specification that describes the management of relational data in enterprise Java applications.

WaveMaker is an enterprise-grade Java low-code development platform for building software applications and platforms. WaveMaker Inc. is headquartered in Mountain View, California. For enterprises, WaveMaker is a low-code platform that aims to accelerate their app development and IT modernization efforts. For ISVs, it is a consumable low-code component that can sit inside their product and offer customizations.

JBoss Developer Studio (JBDS) is a development environment created and currently developed by JBoss and Exadel.

Java Composite Application Platform Suite (Java CAPS) is a standards-based enterprise service bus software suite from Oracle Corporation. The suite has several components that help to integrate existing applications and deliver new business services in a service-oriented architecture environment. It is a Java EE compliant platform and provides application-to-application integration, business-to-business integration, business process management along with integrated human workflow, an Enterprise Information Portal, extract transform and load (ETL), business activity monitoring and composite application development.

Jakarta RESTful Web Services, is a Jakarta EE API specification that provides support in creating web services according to the Representational State Transfer (REST) architectural pattern. JAX-RS uses annotations, introduced in Java SE 5, to simplify the development and deployment of web service clients and endpoints.

The JBoss Enterprise Application Platform is a subscription-based/open-source Java EE-based application server runtime platform used for building, deploying, and hosting highly-transactional Java applications and services developed and maintained by Red Hat. The JBoss Enterprise Application Platform is part of Red Hat's Enterprise Middleware portfolio of software. Because it is Java-based, the JBoss application server operates across platforms; it is usable on any operating system that supports Java. JBoss Enterprise Application Platform was originally called JBoss and was developed by the eponymous company JBoss, acquired by Red Hat in 2006.

WildFly, formerly known as JBoss AS, or simply JBoss, is an application server written by JBoss, now developed by Red Hat. WildFly is written in Java and implements the Java Platform, Enterprise Edition specification. It runs on multiple platforms.

References

↑ Ottinger, Joseph (1 September 2008). "What is an App Server?". TheServerSide.com. Retrieved 2022-02-06. an application server provides an environment where applications can run, no matter what the applications are or what they do
↑ Sintes, Tony (2002-08-23). "App server, Web server: What's the difference?". JavaWorld . Retrieved 2022-06-14. [A]n application server exposes business logic to client applications through various protocols
↑ Ceri, Stefano; Fraternali, Piero; Bongio, Aldo; Brambilla, Marco; Comai, Sara; Matella, Maristella (2003). Designing Data-Intensive Web Applications. Morgan Kaufmann. doi:10.1016/B978-1-55860-843-6.X5000-2. ISBN 1-55860-843-5.
↑ TechNet: Application Server
↑ TechNet: Application Server Role
↑ Jaenicke, Coco (19 November 2014). "Why Mobile App Development Requires More than an SOA". App Developer Magazine. Retrieved 2022-02-06.
↑ Egan, Bob (April 11, 2014). "A Billion Smartphone Users May Be Affected by the Heartbleed Security Flaw". Forbes . Retrieved 2022-02-06.

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[1] Ottinger, Joseph (1 September 2008). "What is an App Server?". TheServerSide.com. Retrieved 2022-02-06. an application server provides an environment where applications can run, no matter what the applications are or what they do

[2] Sintes, Tony (2002-08-23). "App server, Web server: What's the difference?". JavaWorld . Retrieved 2022-06-14. [A]n application server exposes business logic to client applications through various protocols

[3] Ceri, Stefano; Fraternali, Piero; Bongio, Aldo; Brambilla, Marco; Comai, Sara; Matella, Maristella (2003). Designing Data-Intensive Web Applications. Morgan Kaufmann. doi:10.1016/B978-1-55860-843-6.X5000-2. ISBN 1-55860-843-5.

[4] TechNet: Application Server

[5] TechNet: Application Server Role

[6] Jaenicke, Coco (19 November 2014). "Why Mobile App Development Requires More than an SOA". App Developer Magazine. Retrieved 2022-02-06.

[7] Egan, Bob (April 11, 2014). "A Billion Smartphone Users May Be Affected by the Heartbleed Security Flaw". Forbes . Retrieved 2022-02-06.

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