Tier 2: The Application Server Layer
In many ways the application server tier is the brains of the portal. It is here that much of the work gets done. Server-side processing of servlets occurs here, business rules are executed here, data from multiple data sources is integrated here, and the core of portal utilities (e.g., search and navigation) resides here. Of course, this tier also controls access to data sources.
Before going much further, it is time for a few caveats. First, for the rest of the discussion we will refer to a single application server in a portal application. In reality, there could be multiple servers acting in concert to provide load balancing and failover protection.
Second, there could be multiple layers of application ...
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