Special Edition Using Java™ 2 Enterprise Edition

The Importance of Understanding the Network

It's difficult to do enterprise-level development without using a network. If you're deploying an Internet application, it's vital that you have some idea of how your network is configured and how clients access your application. Sooner or later, you're going to have a client who is unable to access your server even though you can access it yourself. When you know the possible things that can go wrong, you have a much better chance of figuring out the problem.

Aside from debugging, it's important to understand the network when you design your application. If someone must access your application through a firewall, you need to know how the firewall affects various network techniques. You might discover ...