Episode 4: The Application Server

The next part of the transaction I'll be discussing is the Application server component.  An application server is simply as server that provides an environment for various applications to run.  For example, the Microsoft Exchange server is an application server that runs the Microsoft Exchange application on a Windows Server platform.

The options for an application server are many.  There are a couple of main server platforms as we discussed earlier: Microsoft Windows Server, Solaris, and Linux based such as RedHat.  There are many more types and proprietary platforms as well that are developed for specific applications.  Then on top of all of these platforms, you can run your server applications such as  Microsoft SQL Server.

Over the past years, the definition of an application server has been developed, and its place in the schema defined.  The number of applications that can now be provided on a server level as drastically increased as well.  Application server were initially just static web servers, but with the increase in business online and business platforms that needed to be provided online, they have developed into the massive and various platforms they are today.

Additional Resources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Application_server
http://www.answers.com/topic/application-server
http://www.theserverside.com/news/1363671/What-is-an-App-Server
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc750283.aspx#XSLTsection130121120120
http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/javaqa/2002-08/01-qa-0823-appvswebserver.html
http://searchsqlserver.techtarget.com/definition/application-server
http://java.sys-con.com/node/36451