You should consider an application server when you have a need for:
Integration with existing systems and databases
Web site support
Secondary reasons to use application servers derive from the primary reasons.
A few secondary reasons are:
E-Commerce
Web-integrated collaboration
Component re-use
One way to look at application servers is that they are a formalization of a
solution to a problem that has been around for a long time. That problem can
characterized as a need to create an integrated presentation and processing
environment for existing systems and databases. The presentation has pretty much
been decided with browsers now being the dominant interface. This is why you usually
see a Web server paired with or included in an application server. The integrated
processing has been moving towards components for some time. Application servers
provide containers for such components along with application program interfaces
(APIs) to support the components. These APIs are to the existing systems and
databases.
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