Hi

Im searching a little on the net and trying to find a good definition/guide on what exactly an application server is. What im looking for is a general definition of what an application really is and what it consists of, and how it works.

What i know about an application so far is that it consists of three parts, a web interface or gui interface, an application server like for ex. jboss and a database server and/or transaction server. But i dont see the whole picture of how it all fits together and as said what an application server really is. Is it a server that can execute java programs for example, if so, why not just write a java program and put it on the web without any application server, why would you need an application server here then.

Can someone please explain this too me (its getting a little frustrating, because i have read definition of what it is..but i guess i dont understand correctly) and/or give a link to a good definition/guide? All help is always appericiated.

I assume you have read the Wikipedia article?

Yes, i have been reading upon it, but its not that easy to understand. But im reading serveral places now and trying to get a better understanding.

So you've realised that an application server is a machine that processes data and then spits up the result to some other machine - the client PC. So all of the hard work is done at the server end and then sent across the network to the client PC. All the client PC has to do really is display the result.

The whole point of an application server is to centralise processing of data. So you have an accounts office with 20 users. If 20 users all had the accounts package stored on their own PCs, keeping all the data syncornised would be a nightmare and without a doubt, errors would appear in the data. By having all the actual database processing done on the server, managing the data is a snap, and there is no problem with multiple users trying to access the same records because all access is handled by a single process. This instead of several people accessing the same record on several different PCs and somehow trying to syncronise all the changes.

I hope that helps a bit