John Crupi

Application servers: one size fits all ... not?

In the beginning there was machine language, followed by assembly language, formula translation, and eventually procedural programming, to organize the chaos. And then objects were introduced, to hide information. Soon Client/Server and multi-tier applications were conceived to separate data concerns from business logic concerns and user interface concerns. Later, these objects were distributed geographically to optimize hardware resources. And now, we have application servers, to simplify scaling up a system for large volumes, improved response times, impeccable reliability, and high availability. Application servers house the business logic, operating on data from a different server, and responding to requests from any source. But these Application Servers come in all shapes, flavors, and sizes. What is a developer to do? This panel will explore issues comparing application server technologies and questions about their appropriate use in different contexts.