A Review of Internet Technology - Part 5: The Application Server

An application server is a software framework that provides an environment in which applications can run, no matter what the applications are or what they do. It is dedicated to the efficient execution of procedures (programs, routines, scripts) for supporting the construction of applications.  So just like our DB Server and our Web Server...we have a dedicated system that is used to run our applications.

There are several advantages to using an Application Server:

Data and code integrity 

By centralizing business logic on an individual server or on a small number of server machines, updates and upgrades to the application for all users can be guaranteed. There is no risk of old versions of the application accessing or manipulating data in an older, incompatible manner.

Centralized configuration

Changes to the application configuration, such as a move of database server, or system settings, can take place centrally.

Security

A central point through which service-providers can manage access to data and portions of the application itself counts as a security benefit, devolving responsibility for authentication away from the potentially insecure client layer without exposing the database layer.

Performance

By limiting the network traffic to performance-tier traffic the client–server model improves the performance of large applications in heavy usage environments.

Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)

In combination, the benefits above may result in cost savings to an organization developing enterprise applications. In practice, however, the technical challenges of writing software that conforms to that paradigm, combined with the need for software distribution to distribute client code, somewhat negate these benefits.

Transaction Support

A transaction represents a unit of activity in which many updates to resources (on the same or distributed data sources) can be made atomic (as an indivisible unit of work). End-users can benefit from a system-wide standard behaviour, from reduced time to develop, and from reduced costs. As the server does a lot of the tedious code-generation, developers can focus on business logic.

3 Main Types of Application Servers:

Java Application Server

.NET Application Server in the form of Windows Server

PHP Application Server

You can choose an application server depending on the platform your company uses.

Application Servers are also cloud compatible.  Just like all of the other servers in the client-server architecture.  When you really think about it, your whole IT solution can become part of the cloud taking away all the headache of managing that on your own.  I'm sure you would have to pay a pretty penny to do that, but if your goal is to get away from the managing of these systems then that might be your best bet. References: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Application_server