Solaris 8 Administrator's Guide

Chapter 10. Network Information Systems

This chapter covers the steps necessary to create web-based information systems, with a simple three-tier Intranet system. The aim is not to teach Java programming per se, but to provide a single fully worked example of how to set up a Solaris application server (Apache/JServ), how to set up a Solaris database server (Postgres), and how to install and test the application. This sample application will draw heavily on the skills introduced in other chapters. Possible architectures for distributing the application across the network are explored with the VisiBroker CORBA object request broker (ORB) from VisiBroker.

One of the toughest assignments of a Solaris network administrator is to support information systems applications in a production environment. When you’re working with a combination of web servers, application servers, database servers, and middleware servers, there’s a degree of complexity that is difficult to fathom. Network administrators are not Java developers, CORBA gurus, and database administrators; yet, the ultimate success of all of these stakeholders depends on the reliability of the operating system and local area network, which is the task of the network administrator. Fortunately, Solaris is the operating system of choice for supporting modern, distributed information systems, and much of the third party software developed for enterprise computing is available for Solaris.

The Java language created by Sun Microsystems, ...