App Server and Web server
Hi All
I know my questions may be simple/stupid for some but they have been playing up in my mind for awhile. My questions are what is an app server and what is a web server? For example, why do I always hear people installing Tomcat and Apache together for development? Isn't it enough just to have Tomcat installed for development of servlets? Also, are there any web servers outthere have "wrapped" the app server within itself and perform just as well?
Thx.
It is quite possible to run Tomcat as a standalone server for development. If people are running it with Apache it may be because they want to have an exact match of the system they are running live. It is worth getting practise with the same tools you use in production, and it is good to get experience of setting up those tools in a safe environment too.
It is unusual to have a web server that "wraps" the Application server for the simple reason that Application Servers are, by definition, a web server that also does a whole lot more. So it is more that the App-server wraps the web server than vice versa.
