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Over the last few years, web server applications have evolved from static to dynamic applications. This evolution became necessary due to some deficiencies in earlier web site design. For example, to put more of business processes on the web, whether in business-to-consumer (B2C) or business-to-business (B2B) markets, conventional web site design technologies are not enough. The main issues, every developer faces when developing web applications, are:
1. Scalability - a successful site will have more users and as the number of users is increasing fastly, the web applications have to scale correspondingly.
2. Integration of data and business logic - the web is just another way to conduct business, and so it should be able to use the same middle-tier and data-access code.
3. Manageability - web sites
just keep getting bigger and we need some viable mechanism to manage the ever-increasing content and its interaction with business systems.
4. Personalization - adding a personal touch to the web page becomes an essential factor to keep our customer coming back again. Knowing their preferences, allowing them to configure the information they view, remembering their past transactions or frequent search keywords are all important in providing feedback and interaction from what is otherwise a fairly one-sided conversation.
Apart from these general needs for a business-oriented web site, the necessity for new technologies to create robust, dynamic and compact server-side web applications has been realized. The main characteristics of today's dynamic web server applications are as follows:
1. Serve HTML and XML, and stream data to the web client
2. Separate presentation, logic and data
3. Interface to databases, other Java applications, CORBA, directory and mail services
4. Make use of application server middleware to provide transactional support.
5. Track client sessions
Now let us have a look on the role of Java technology and platform in this regard.
