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By Ellen Messmer
Network World, 11/17/97

A new breed of Web applications servers designed for transactions processing are starting to play a critical role inside intranets and for electronic commerce.

Basic HTTP servers are adequated for publishing HTML content, but many observers say these servers cannot be counted on to handle large-volume queries or transactions made to back-end databases. However, by installing a Web applications server behind the Web server, companies can gain features such as fault tolerance, load balancing and state-based transaction processing.

A growing number of vendors now offer Web applications servers. Their use is adding muscle to corporate intranets and electronic commerce Web sites run by companies such as NationsBanc-CRT, E*Trade Securities, Inc., Travelociti, Hongkong Telecom and Internet Shopping Network.

Shop-till-you-drop

For the Internet Shopping Network, a Web applications server was a necessity. The company now has a computer superstore on the Internet and a second 'Net-based service called FIrst Auction.

"For companies like ours that do transactions on the Internet, the biggest problem is the HTTP stateless protocol, which was never designed for transactions processing," says Bhagwan Goel, vice president of products and services.

HTTP is a protocol that delivers data but is not equipped to keep track of sessions or monitor interactive transactions. Web applications servers are designed to overcome this limitation through statebased management.

For the sake of processing speed and reliability, Internet Shopping Network built a Web applications server based on Kiva Software Corp.'s Enterprise Server. The company also uses a Netscape Communications Corp. Web server as the HTTP front end to the Kiva server.

This configuration now supports thousands of simultaneous queries to a back-end information database server. This accommodates queries from Web shoppers looking to buy.

"This is as mission-critical as it gets," Goel says. "We wrote the application ourselves using Kiva."

Who needs client/server?

Specialized Web applications servers also are showing up inside the corporate intranet as an adjunct or replacement for traditional client/server computing nets.

AlliedSignal, Inc. wanted to do real-time expense tracking by giving hundreds of its financial analysts around the world direct access to materials-sector purchasing information stored in its Oracle Corp. 7.0 database.

Last spring, AlliedSignal's applications group was given marching orders to get the project done within four months. "In the past, AlliedSignal would have written a client/server program to do this," says Brian Buchanan, the company's applications group manager. "This time, we decided to try something different."

AlliedSignal accountants needed to do complex SQL queries on the corporate Oracle7 database using only a Web browser, so the company installed Oracle's Web Application Server 3.0 running a stored procedure language (PL/SQL) software cartridge. Oracle markets several different cartridges, such as one for credit-card processing.

AlliedSignal's project manager Robert Bodnar says the Oracle database maintains the presentation and application logic. The Web Application Server's PL/SQL cartridge calls the code to deliver information in HTML to the accountant's Web browser. The Oracle Web Applications Server took only a couple months to implement.

The future of Web-based computing

Because they can solve the HTTP state-management problem, Web applications servers represent the future course of Web-based computing, says Daryl Plummer, research director for Internet client/server tools at Gartner Group, Inc., in Stamford, Conn.

Whether deployed in a "two-tier" or even "n-tier" configuration, Web applications servers are set to play a central role in Web-based enterprise computing. "Java will be the primary, but not the only, programming language companies will use," Plummer says.

In addition to Kiva and Oracle, vendors touting Web applications servers include Bluestone Software, Inc., Forte Software, Inc., Haht Software Corp., NetDynamics, Inc., SilverStream Software, Inc. and WebLogic, Inc.

NetDynamics last week shipped Version 4.0 of its Enterprise Network Applications, 'ripping out 70% of its server to rebuild it based on the [Java Development Kit] 1.1 and the Common Object Request Broker Architecture,' says Rick Caccia, NetDynamics' product marketing director.

Caccia says the next step is to incorporate Enterprise JavaBeans into Web applications servers. Enterprise JavaBeans 1.0, Sun Microsystems, Inc.'s specification for building mission-critical applications in Java, was just published last week.

Why the need for Enterprise JavaBeans? One problem with Web applications servers is that when buying into a vendor's product, it is not easy to port applications to another vendor's Web applications server to reuse code.

In theory, if vendors write their products using Enterprise JavaBeans, application developers will be able to reuse code across vendor products.

"It's true that today once you commit to one vendor, you're committed. But the next step is Enterprise JavaBeans, and we're looking to it for code reuse," Caccia says.

Netscape does not have a full-fledged Web applications server today, but in the future its main push into this market will be based on Enterprise JavaBeans, company officials say.

"Enterprise JavaBeans is a new set of programming interfaces for features like transactions processing, and we're trying to provide the same platform," says John Dawes, Netscape group product manager.

Kiva President Keng Lim says his company will be betting on Enterprise JavaBeans too. WebLogic last week shipped a Web applications server called Tengah based on Enterprise JavaBeans.

However, not everyone has Beans on the brain.

Microsoft Corp., eager to jump into the Web applications server game, says its Transaction Server 2.0 and the Message Queue Server 1.0 does not have the functionality to warrant calling it a Web applications server, says Jonathan Perera, Microsoft lead product manager.

Instead of decoupling the Web applications server piece of the HTTP Web server, Microsoft has chosen to firmly integrate Transactions Server 2.0 into its Internet Information Server 4.0. "It's important for developers to have an integrated framework," Perera says.