Waht is the Application Server?

Question

Servers

Answer 1

An application server is a server computer in a computer network dedicated to running certain software applications (as opposed to e.g. a file server or print server). The term also refers to the software installed on such a computer to facilitate the serving (running) of other applications.

Because the exact role of an application server depends on the architecture of the application it is serving, it is an imprecise and fluid term. Generally, however, an application server will handle most, if not all of the business logic and data access of an application which has a complementary client side. This is perceived as beneficial from a number of standpoints, chiefly the benefits of centralization.

Data and code integrity. By centralizing business logic on an individual or small number of server machines, updates and upgrades to the application for all users can be guaranteed. There is no risk of old versions of the application accessing or manipulating data in an older, incompatible manner.
Centralized configuration. Changes to the application configuration, such as a move of database server, or system settings, can be done centrally.
Security. A central point through which access to data and portions of the application itself can be managed is considered a security benefit, devolving responsibility for authentication away from the potentially insecure client layer without exposing the database layer.
Performance. By limiting the network traffic to presentation layer traffic, it is perceived that the client-server model improves the performance of large applications in heavy usage environments.
Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). The above benefits combined are considered to represent a cost saving to a company. In practise, however, the technical challenges of writing software that conforms to that paradigm combined with the need for software distribution to distribute client code somewhat negate these benefits.
Although the term Application server applies to all platforms, it has become synonymous with the Sun Microsystems J2EE platform. It has also come to encompass servers of web-based applications, although the paradigm is more similar to mainframe based applications than traditional client-server.

Answer 2

Application server is a like a File server, is where you store data, where you can run programs, save files to a centralized place.

Answer 3

an app server is a server that is hosting a shared application.