Difference between Web and Application Server

Post date: 23-Dec-2010 08:04:47

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What is the difference between Web Server and Application server?

Muralimk

Difference between AppServer and a Web server

(1) Webserver serves pages for viewing in web browser, application server provides exposes businness logic for client applications through various protocols

(2) Webserver exclusively handles http requests.application server serves bussiness logic to application programs through any number of protocols.

(3) Webserver delegation model is fairly simple,when the request comes into the webserver,it simply passes the request to the program best able to handle it(Server side program). It may not support transactions and database connection pooling.

(4) Application server is more capable of dynamic behaviour than webserver. We can also configure application server to work as a webserver.Simply applic! ation server is a superset of webserver.

Raghavan alias Saravanan M.

Web Server serves static HTML pages  or gifs, jpegs, etc., and can also run code written in CGI, JSP etc. A Web server handles the HTTP protocol. Eg of some web server are IIS or apache.

An Application Server is used to run business logic or dynamically generated presentation code. It can either be .NET based or J2EE based (BEA WebLogic Server, IBM WebSphere, JBoss).

A J2EE application server runs servlets and JSPs (infact a part of the app server called web container is responsible for running servlets and JSPs) that are used to create HTML pages dynamically. In addition, J2EE application server can run EJBs - which are used to execute business logic.

An Application server has a 'built-in' web server, in addition to that it supports other modules or features like e-business integration, independent management and security module, portlets etc.

Mun Ira

A Web Server understands and supports only HTTP protocol whereas an Application Server supports HTTP,TCP/IP and many more protocols. Also many more features such as Caches,Clusters,Load Balancing are there in Application Servers which are not available in Web Servers. We can also Configure Application Servers to work as Web Server. In short, Applicaion Server is a super set of which Web Server is a sub set.

You can't run EJB or any business logic in Javawebserver.  An application server should have the capability to run business logic in it. That's why we can't say that JWserver a application server.

The Web server:

A Web server handles the HTTP protocol. When the Web server receives an HTTP request, it responds with an HTTP response, such as sending back an HTML page. To process a request, a Web server may respond with a static HTML page or image, send a redirect, or delegate the dynamic response generation to some other program such as CGI scripts, JSPs (JavaServer Pages), servlets, ASPs (Active Server Pages), server-side JavaScripts, or some other server-side technology. Whatever their purpose, such server-side programs generate a response, most often in HTML, for viewing in a Web browser.

Understand that a Web server's delegation model is fairly simple. When a request comes into the Web server, the Web server simply passes the request to the program best able to handle it. The Web server doesn't provide any functionality beyond simply providing an environment in which the server-side program can execute and pass back the generated responses. The server-side program usually provides for itself such functions as transaction processing, database connectivity, and messaging.

While a Web server may not itself support transactions or database connection pooling, it may employ various strategies for fault tolerance and scalability such as load balancing, caching, and clustering—features oftentimes erroneously assigned as features reserved only for application servers.

Eg: Apache HTTP Server, Sun ONE Web Server, iPlanet Web Server

The application server:

As for the application server, according to our definition, an application server exposes business logic to client applications through various protocols, possibly including HTTP. While a Web server mainly deals with sending HTML for display in a Web browser, an application server provides access to business logic for use by client application programs. The application program can use this logic just as it would call a method on an object (or a function in the procedural world).

Such application server clients can include GUIs (graphical user interface) running on a PC, a Web server, or even other application servers. The information traveling back and forth between an application server and its client is not restricted to simple display markup. Instead, the information is program logic. Since the logic takes the form of data and method calls and not static HTML, the client can employ the exposed business logic however it wants.

In most cases, the server exposes this business logic through a component API, such as the EJB (Enterprise JavaBean) component model found on J2EE (Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition) application servers. Moreover, the application server manages its own resources. Such gate-keeping duties include security, transaction processing, resource pooling, and messaging.

Ref: http://www.sap-img.com/java/difference-between-web-and-application-server.htm