SRV.1.6 Distributable Servlet Containers

New in this version of the specification is the ability to mark a web application as distributable . This indication allows servlet container vendors to deploy the servlets in a web application across multiple Java virtual machines running on the same host or on different hosts . An application marked as distributable must obey a few restrictions so that containers that support distributable applications can implement features such as clustering and failover.

All web applications that may need to run in a high performance environment, one that allows for scalability, clustering, and failover (such as a compliant J2EE implementation), should be written as distributable web applications. This will allow applications to take maximum advantage of servers that provide these features. If a non-distributable application is deployed into such a server, then it cannot take full advantage of the features that are given by such servers.