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To: Charles Hughes who wrote (1209)	9/16/1998 3:57:00 PM
From: Kashish King	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 5102

There's no governing body to stipulate what an application server is so in that sense it is a marketing ploy. If you've got an application specific tier between the database and the client you probably meet the buzzword-compliant criteria for an application server. One thing we can be sure of is that all application servers are object-oriented -- as you know, the criterion for object-oriented software is that it be for sale. So, you're intuition is correct, it's just a new name for the middle piece of a three-tier architecture. I guess the advent of HTML, CGI, and Java really drove the need to distinguish those types of servers from the more common two-tier database server. I think it is safe to assume that when marketing people talk about application servers they are talking about a web-based server that serves up browser-hosted applications to clients on the front-end and interfaces with the database (or perhaps another layer of abstraction) on the back-end.

To: Charles Hughes who wrote (1209)	9/16/1998 7:03:00 PM
From: Graham Wideman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 5102

Charles: (semi-off-topic continued..) As Rod notes... seems like "application server" is pretty much in line with what you intuited. > What is really new... The idea of a middle-layer server is not new, but perhaps the main new thing is the trend toward developing the entire system in one coordinated environment to facilitate such an implementation... -- Same model used as a basis for UI, app server and DB design and constraints. -- Allows functionality to be targeted to client, DB server or app server, with little effort involved in changing target. Eg: If the whole thing is in Java, conceivably one could use either 2 or 3 tiers, and arbitrarily assign objects or functions to reside/execute in any of these places according to performance or other criteria. The ability to select the number of layers and distribution of functionality as a final generation step greatly facilitates the use of app servers, since the system doesn't have to based on a ground up commitment to 3-tier, and can be developed in a traditional 2-tier environment if necessary. This is the idea, or should I say selling point, behind current Oracle Designer/Developer 2000 and Forms app development (clumsy though it is IMO), and for Java replacing PLSQL as the Oracle DB server stored procedure language. Graham