Web Application Servers Essay, Research Paper

Web App Servers A new breed application platforms known as web app servers, for internet based applications, has been born. These new application development environments provide the means for internet pages to contain and transfer information to and from the client’s browser. A little more than a year ago the same software developers that introduced PowerBuilder, the programming platform used to access information by the Federal Reserve, introduced a new Java based development environment. They named this new environment SilverStream. SilverStream is a Web Application Platform built with the aid of new talent from Watermark and Lotus. The base programming languages for these development environments are javascript, html, dhtml, vbscript, java and server side scripting. The main function of a web app server is to link the client’s web browser and the host application running on a central server. The new java based application platorm fits well with leading software manufactureers Microsoft and the database giant Oracle. By supporting these two leaders SilverStream has ensured itself a place for years to come. The appliacations modules are written in Java. The advantages for writing the modules in Java are reusability, compatibility, and efficiency. Unlike the C or VisualBasic languages, Java code can be run anywhere there is a fairly new browser. This means that development teams will be spared having to rewrite the same program for a Macintosh or a Windows computer. The developers of SilverStream were once the employees of Powerbuilder. One of Powerbuilders goals was to build a programming language that didn’t care if you were developing a program for a Mac, Unix, or PC. Powerbuilder reached for universitility, but unfortunatetly the backbone was not there. SilverStream has done an exceptional job by taking advantage of the universitility and distributibility of the Java language. SilverStream is one step closer to allowing applications to be written once and run on any machine. A developer writes code in SilverStream with moduals called ‘designers’. The designers, reminicent of Powerbuilders ‘painters’ allow for visual coding. These poserful designers will allow employees with little training to develop reports and simple applications for the distribution and access of mission critical information. By empowering employees with the ability to create code business deploying SilverStream technolog will save money. The SilverStream development environment has many advantages. One of the advantages are speed. The distributed architecture inherent in web app servers allows speed. The speed of deploying new applications to thousands of users increases dramatically. A web page can be viewed, and run by thousands of users at once. These servers allow speed with fewer problems and less cost.

Traditional store bought programs, require a setup. However, during the setup process many files are installed on your computer. Most setup programs also make changes that you are unaware of. These changes could easily conflict with previous changes made by another setup program. With one computer this is not much of a hinderence, but for major corporations with users in the thousands, these setups require a large chunk of change and many problems are sure to come. In order to update the installed program you must update the files on every machine and hope that there are no conflicts. The complexity of programing changes increases the average computer company costs to over 8,000 dollars a year per computer when initial cost and maintance fees are combined. With these types of figures it not hard to see why major corporations and agressive programmers are moving in herds towards internet based applicaitons. Corporations are delighted to welcome the new internet based applications (web app. servers). It will be interesting to see what development environment will end up coming out ahead. I believe that SilverStream is well on its way to becoming a major contender as more corporations turn towards this new technology.