Electrical computers and digital processing systems: multicomput – Remote data accessing – Accessing a remote server
Reexamination Certificate
2000-05-01
2004-02-24
Etienne, Ario (Department: 2157)
Electrical computers and digital processing systems: multicomput
Remote data accessing
Accessing a remote server
C709S203000, C709S217000, C711S124000, C711S141000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06697849
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of application servers, and more particularly to a system and method for caching JavaServer Pages™ responses.
2. Description of the Related Art
The field of application servers has recently become one of the fastest-growing and most important fields in the computing industry. As web applications and other distributed applications have evolved into large-scale applications that demand more sophisticated computing services, specialized application servers have become necessary, in order to provide a platform supporting these large-scale applications. Applications that run on application servers are generally constructed according to an n-tier architecture, in which presentation, business logic, and data access layers are kept separate. The application server space is sometimes referred to as “middleware”, since application servers are often responsible for deploying and running the business logic layer and for interacting with and integrating various enterprise-wide resources, such as web servers, databases, and legacy systems.
Application servers offer significant advantages over previous approaches to implementing web applications, such as using common gateway interface (CGI) scripts or programs.
FIG. 1
illustrates a typical architecture for a web application utilizing CGI scripts or programs. The client computer running a web browser
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may reference a CGI program
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on the web server
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, e.g., by referencing a URL such as “http://server.domain.com/cgi-bin/myprogram.pl” over an Intranet or the Internet
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. Generally, the CGI program runs on the web server itself, possibly accessing a database
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, e.g. in order to dynamically generate HTML content, and the web server returns the output of the program to the web browser. One drawback to this approach is that the web server may start a new process each time a CGI program or script is invoked, which can result in a high processing overhead, impose a limit on the number of CGI programs that can run at a given time, and slow down the performance of the web server. In contrast, application servers typically provide a means for enabling programs or program components that are referenced via a URL to run on a separate computer from the web server and to persist between client invocations.
Another common drawback of previous web application design models, such as the use of CGI programs, is related to data access. For example, if a CGI program needs to access a database, the program typically opens a database connection and then closes the connection once it is done. Since opening and closing database connections are expensive operations, these operations may further decrease the performance of the web server each time a CGI program runs. In contrast, application servers typically provide a means to pool database connections, thus eliminating or reducing the need to constantly open/close database connections. Also, data access in CGI programs is generally coded at a relatively low level, e.g., using a specific dialect of SQL to access a specific type of database. Thus, portions of the application may need to be recoded if the database is replaced with a new type of database. Application servers, on the other hand, may provide a database service for applications to utilize as an interface between the application and the database, which can serve to abstract the application from a particular type of database.
Application servers may also provide many other types of application services or may provide standard reusable components for tasks that web applications commonly need to perform. Application servers often incorporate these services and components into an integrated development environment specialized for creating web applications. The integrated development environment may leverage various standard software component models, such as the Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA), the (Distributed) Component Object Model (COM/DCOM), Enterprise JavaBeans™ (EJB), etc., or the integrated development environment may provide its own software component model or may extend standard component models in various ways.
The following list is a partial list of the types of application services or application components that application servers may provide. By leveraging these types of integrated, pre-built services and components, web application developers may realize a significant reduction in application development time and may also be able to develop a more robust, bug-free application. Application servers from different vendors differ, of course, in the types of services they provide; thus, the following list is exemplary only.
As noted above, application servers may provide data access services for accessing various types of databases, e.g. through directly supporting proprietary databases, such as SAP, Lotus Notes, CICS, etc., or through standardized interfaces, such as ODBC, JDBC, etc. Also, as noted above, application servers may enable database connection pooling or caching.
Application servers may also provide services for accessing network directories, such as directories that support the standard Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP).
Application servers may also provide application security services or components. Web application security may be considered at different levels, such as: client-to-server communication, application-level privileges, database access, directory service access, etc. Application server security-related services/components may include support for performing user authentication, performing data encryption, communicating via secure protocols such as Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), utilizing security certificates, programming user access rights, integrating with operating system security, etc.
Application servers may also provide services enabling a web application to easily maintain user state information during a user session or across user sessions. Performing state and session management is especially important for applications that have complex, multi-step transactions.
Application servers may also support caching the results of application logic execution or caching the results of web page/component output, so that for appropriate subsequent requests, the results may be reused.
Application servers may also support result streaming, such as dynamically streaming HTTP output, which may be especially useful for large result sets involving lengthy queries. A related service may enable an application to easily display a large result set by breaking the result set down into smaller groups and displaying these groups to the user one at a time.
Many web applications need to perform various types of searching or indexing operations. Application servers may also provide application services for indexing or searching various types of documents, databases, etc.
As noted above, many web applications may perform various types of complex, multi-step transactions. Application servers may also provide support for managing these application transactions. For example, this support may be provided via a software component model supported by the application server, such as the Enterprise JavaBeans™ component model, or via integration with third-party transaction process monitors, etc.
It is often desirable to enable web applications to perform certain operations independently, as opposed to in response to a user request. For example, it may be desirable for an application to automatically send a newsletter to users via email at regularly scheduled intervals. Application servers may support the creation and scheduling of events to perform various types of operations.
Many types of web applications need to perform e-commerce transactions, such as credit card transactions, financial data exchange, etc. Application servers may provide services for performing various types of e-commerce transactions or may provide an integrated third-party e-commerce package for applications to use.
Web applications often need
Etienne Ario
Jacobs LaShonda
Kivlin B. Noäl
Meyertons Hood Kivlin Kowert & Goetzel P.C.
Sun Microsystems Inc.
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