A Java Web Server

For Web-enabled access to Enterprise JavaBeans, you'll need a JavaBean-capable Web server. The easiest way to get this is to use JavaSoft's own Java Web Server (previously code-named Jeeves) currently in alpha release and downloadable free of charge. Note that currently, servlets running on Java Web Server are not JavaBeans or Enterprise JavaBeans and use a different API.

Java Web Server is written entirely in Java. It supports all the usual Web-server functions such as Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) security and Common Gateway Interface (CGI). But there's a difference: Java servlets. These sma ll Java components can do any job a CGI script can do, often doing it with lower invocation overhead and fewer resources. And even though Java is interpreted, execution speed is not a problem for many server-side tasks. For example, BYTE's Jon Udell found that rewriting Perl scripts on the BYTE site as servlets made them run faster. Perl is interpreted, too. (So, too, did using Internet Service API [ISAPI] Perl, which also cuts invocation overhead.) Native Java compilers such as Asymetrix's promise to remove performance as an issue entirely.

It's probably unlikely that you're willing to throw out your existing Web server to get Java Web Server's servlet capabilities. And you don't have to. Thanks to the universal middleware of URLs, you can just refer from Internet Information Server (IIS)- or Apache-hosted pages to servlet functions running under the control of your Java Web Server.

But that's OK. JavaSoft also has a package that will enable servlet support on ot her popular Web servers such as Apache, Netscape, and IIS. O'Reilly's WebSite 2.0, forthcoming, will host servlets. Also, Netscape Enterprise Server 3.0 has its own notion of servlets.