NonStop Systems Introduction for H-Series RVUs

NonStop Systems Introduction for H-Series RVUs—540083-001
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The Application Server Environment
This section introduces the application servers used in most HP ZLE frameworks. To
provide a better understanding of these application servers, the discussion is
subdivided as follows:
•
Role of the Application Server outlines the role of the application server in the ZLE
framework.
•
Evolution of the Application Server Architecture traces the development of the
client/server architecture used by application servers, beginning with the earliest
models developed by HP and proceeding through the multitiered, distributed object
architectures used by most application servers today.
•
Application Server Functions explores some of the major client and server handling
functions performed by application servers.
•
The HP Application Servers presents a high-level overview of the three application
servers offered by HP: NonStop Tuxedo, NonStop CORBA, and the J2EE-
compliant BEA WebLogic Server.
•
The Role of Web Services in Application Integration describes how Web services
technologies can be used within a business to enable business processes to
communicate and work together across different environments and platforms.
Role of the Application Server
In the previous section, we discussed the role of enterprise application integration
(EAI) in a ZLE framework. The application server is a central component of the HP
implementation of EAI; it provides a framework for developing and hosting all the
services, applications, facilities, and tools that constitute the EAI layer of a real-time
solution. Specifically, the application server provides a framework for:
•
Executing the programs that provide integration services for a corporation’s
business systems, enabling those systems to communicate and exchange data
•
Executing real-time applications that update and retrieve information from the real-
time data store
•
Developing new real-time applications and services
Note. The term application server is used somewhat loosely in this section. The products
discussed in this section are not, strictly speaking, all application servers. The Pathway
and NonStop Tuxedo products are transaction processing (TP) monitors, and the NonStop
CORBA product is an object request broker. BEA WebLogic Server is a true application
server. But all these products perform many of the functions generally associated with both
TP monitors and application servers. For convenience, they are all referred to as
application servers.