EEapplikationsserver

EEapplikationsserver, or EE application server, is a middleware platform designed to run enterprise applications and provide services such as transaction management, security, messaging, and web services. It typically implements the Jakarta EE (formerly Java EE) specification or a compatible subset, and serves as the runtime container for the components of an enterprise application.

A standard EE application server hosts web components like servlets and JSPs, as well as business components such as EJBs or CDI-managed beans. It manages deployment units (WARs, EARs), and resources such as JDBC datasources, JMS destinations, and message-driven beans. The server offers management interfaces and a console for administration and handles cross-cutting concerns including security, transactions, concurrency, and scalability. It also provides integration points for enterprise systems and external services.

Key features of an EE application server include support for distributed transactions, clustering, load balancing, high availability, and failover. It offers monitoring and administration tools, lifecycle management, and often developers’ tools for deployment, debugging, and profiling. Interoperability with enterprise messaging, web services, and data persistence is commonly emphasized, along with a runtime environment suitable for large-scale web applications and service-oriented architectures.

Typical use cases involve hosting large-scale web applications, exposing REST or SOAP services, integrating with ERP or CRM systems, batch processing, and enabling service-oriented or microservice-oriented architectures within larger ecosystems. Deployment may be in data centers or cloud environments, sometimes behind load balancers or within containerized infrastructures.

Prominent examples in the market include Oracle WebLogic, IBM WebSphere Application Server, and Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform (WildFly/EAP). Open-source options such as WildFly and Apache Tomcat are also used, depending on Jakarta EE compliance, performance, clustering capabilities, and support requirements.