Difference between Web server and application server
Difference between web server and application server lies in the function they perform to fullfill user request.Both have some similarity and difference.Lets find out the difference between them.
The main difference between web server and application server is that ,web server ,serves HTTP request where as Application server is interface(business logic/business layer) between Front End( presentation layer/GUI) and Back End (Database/ERP) by using any number of protocols.
Now we can see them in more details and compare web servers and application servers in light of more facts:-
Web Server
1) 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.
2) According to the HTTP protocol, the client should send a Request to the server in a special format and Based on the Request, the server will send back a Response, which again is in a special format.
3)Web server can return only static pages but it may delegate the dynamic response generation to some other program JSP,ASP,servlets ,server-side JavaScript and other server side technologies.
4) When web server delegates the work it doesn't provide any functionality beyond simply providing an environment in which the server-side program can execute and pass back the generated responses.
5) 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.
6) Application server also uses web server for displaying responses in client’s browser in another way web server is subset of application server.
7) Web servers are technology designed to create and deploy Web site, serving up content more so than applications.Web servers are more about the interface than the back-end logic
Application server
1) An application server is a server program in a computer in a distributed network that provides the business logic for an application program. The application server is frequently viewed as part of a three-tier application, consisting of a graphical user interface (GUI) server, an application (business logic) server, and a database and transaction server
2) Legacy application(main frames) databases and transaction management applications are part of the back end or third tier. The application server is the middleman between browser-based front-ends and back-end databases and legacy systems.
3) The application server combines or works with a Web (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) server and is called a Web application server.
4) The Web server provides several different ways to forward a request to an application server and to forward back a modified or new Web page to the user.
5) To reduce the complexity in the middle tier, enterprise programmers build their applications on top of systems called Application Servers.Application Servers provide the system services to address the non-functional requirements like scalability, performance etc and reduces the complexity of the middle tier by Resource Pooling and Multithreading
6)To support high-end needs, an application server has to have built-in redundancy, monitors for high-availability, high-performance distributed application services and support for complex database access.
7)examples- Java Application servers(weblogic,JBoss,JRun etc),Microsoft server(.NET Platform),Zend Server(PHP application) etc
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