Accessing an LDAP Server via an Application Server

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You can use an application server to overcome the limits imposed by CGI scripts. The application server maintains state for you because the server site remembers who you are. The application server, like the Web server, communicates with the Web browser using HTTP, so the possibilities of maintaining state between different requests from the Web browser are the same as those for the CGI scripts. The important difference, however, is that in the case of an application server, it is the server that maintains the state for you, and you can concentrate on developing the application.

One example of a popular application server is Tomcat, a servlet container. Tomcat is developed and maintained by the Apache foundation, the same group that maintains the Apache Web server. You can download it from the Apache Web site at http://www.apache.org (selecting "Tomcat") or directly from http://tomcat.apache.org. A servlet container also enables you to write HTML code containing particular tags with Java code. The servlet container compiles the Java code contained in these tags and runs them when the user requests this HTML page.

An application server makes it possible for a Web browser to execute programs on the server. The end user sitting before the Web browser need not know anything about the LDAP protocol to use the application. In contrast to the situation with CGI scripts, however, the programmer need not worry about maintaining state information as one request passes to the next. Furthermore, application servers provide better performance than CGI scripts because they obviate the need to continue creating new processes as requests from the browser arrive.

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