Updated: July 12, 2020 (September 23, 2002)
Charts & IllustrationsWindows as an Application Server
COM+ and Microsoft Message Queuing (MSMQ) play a central role in using Windows as an application server. Application servers provide a platform for running server applications that have high scalability and availability requirements. Microsoft ships application server capabilities in Windows servers rather than offering a separate application server product, such as BEA’s WebLogic Enterprise, IBM’s WebSphere Application Server, or Oracle9i Application Server.
Shown at the top is a typical business application whose code is divided into presentation (user interface), business logic, and data access tiers. At the bottom are the most important Windows services and APIs that perform application server functions. Windows .NET Server actually provides two families of APIs for these functions: .NET APIs that serve “managed” applications running under the .NET Framework and the original Win32 APIs serving “unmanaged” applications.
Presentation. The Internet Information Server (IIS) Web server enables server applications to present data and get input over Hypertext Transfer Protocol, or HTTP (the standard Web protocol), serving HTML to “thin” clients (browsers) or XML (via Web services) to “smart” clients that present a Windows graphical user interface (GUI). Managed applications generally access IIS through ASP.NET, while most unmanaged applications use the older Active Server Pages (ASP) API.
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