In case you're interested, we've written a short document about Catalina's Features And Benefits (FAB) that is more geared for non-geeks (it's very marketingly-written :) that you may want to include with the M4 docs. I've attached it to this mail. It's a plain text version, but I'm sure it would look better as HTML. Let us know if there's anything inaccurate about the details it contains. It was written by William Abernathy ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) and myself. Let us know what you think. And, BTW, great work on making Catalina the first Servlet 2.3 compliant servlet container! Cheers! -- Jason Brittain Software Engineer, Olliance Inc. http://www.Olliance.com Current Maintainer, Locomotive Project http://www.Locomotive.org "Craig R. McClanahan" wrote: > > Hey folks, > > I'm planning on cutting a fourth milestone of Tomcat 4.0 tomorrow > (Wednesday) evening. This milestone will reflect all of the changes > that occurred in the servlet 2.3 and JSP 1.2 specifications between > public draft and proposed final draft (and there were a *bunch* of > them), completion of the remaining new 2.3/1.2 functionality, and > several bug fixes. > > This will be the last big push of spec-related functionality additions > for Tomcat 4.0. Now, we can turn our attention more towards bug fixes > and performance tuning. You can help in that process by downloading and > playing with the Tomcat 4.0 milestone. I'd like to see us shake it out > enough to be production quality by Christmas time. > > Besides bug fixing and tuning, I know of several pieces of functionality > yet to be added that are being worked on, including: > > * Web connectors (using a new connector protocol > called mod_warp that is aware of webapp configuration > settings, so you will not have to configure things twice). > > * JNDI context support (like that used in J2EE servers) > for the <env-entry> and <resource-ref> configuration > parameters in the deployment descriptor. > > If you are interested in contributing to Tomcat 4.0, there is a "wish > list" document in file "catalina/STATUS.html" in the jakarta-tomcat-4.0 > source tree. Feel free to propose new ideas, or to volunteer to work on > one of these. > > Craig McClanahan
Features and Benefits of the Catalina Servlet Container Introduction Catalina is a new open source servlet container from the makers of Apache JServ, engineered to be the fastest, most flexible, and most modular servlet container available. Hosted by the Apache Software Foundation, the Catalina server software package project is SUN Microsystems's next-generation Java Servlet Container Reference Implementation. This text discusses Catalina's features and benefits. Modularly-Designed Servlet Container Core Open source servlet containers have not, historically, been designed to be modular. Modularity allows much of the container's core functionalities to be changed out seamlessly when different implementations are required. Catalina's servlet container core was designed to be made of modules, each of which has a well defined interface to the other core modules. Any module may be replaced at runtime by new implementations that still adhere to the core's interfaces. New implementations of these core modules support custom and/or extended features, including: - Direct pluggable integration with legacy systems - Diverse implementations of free or proprietary core components - Modular embedding of the Catalina servlet container into larger applications. Up to Date With the Latest Java Servlet Specification New development invariably drives new specification revisions. In addition to its full compliance with the featureful Java Servlet 2.2 Specification, Catalina's design is pushing servlet container functionality to new heights. Catalina's development has driven the Java Servlet 2.3 Specification, which is written to take advantage of new features that were first implemented as part of the Catalina servlet container. Catalina brings the enterprise the latest and greatest servlet functionality -- first, and for free. Full, Integrally-Designed Virtual Hosting Support Engineered from the outset to support a complete set of virtual hosting features, Catalina's core enjoys distinct advantages over servlet containers that have had to add virtual hosting. Having these features designed into the core makes the source code easier to understand, and makes these features easy and efficient to use. Catalina includes support for running multiple Web Applications per vhost. Internet providers and web hosting companies need this hard-to-find feature to help scale their servers to meet high demand for less cost. Featureful and Extensible Request Processing Catalina supports request filtering on multiple levels and better enables the separation of server and web application functions. This makes it much easier for an administrator to track web application usage, track server performance, and add custom request and response filtering without the need to modify web application code. Built-in Multiplatform High Performance Web Server Along with great servlet container features, Catalina comes with its own high performance HTTP 1.1 web server built in. This new web server, written entirely in Java, makes it easy to try Catalina without having to configure a third-party web server. Users can thus deploy Catalina as a functionally complete application server solution (excluding database server) without a serious performance penalty. The built-in web server performs well under heavy load, even compared to the native Apache web server. And because Catalina is written completely in Java, it's fully multiplatform, running on Linux, Windows, Solaris or any other operating system that supports the Java 2 Platform. Pluggable Request Protocols Most servlet containers available today can only accept HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) requests (typically from web browsers like Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer). These servlet containers cannot handle direct requests from handheld wireless, CORBA, and RMI clients, nor can they accommodate custom request protocols. Catalina is designed to make it easy to write a connector module that accepts requests over any protocol, supporting runtime-configurable, pluggable request protocol connectors. This means that anyone can use Catalina as a generic, robust, and free server framework on which to build custom solutions. Built-in WebDAV Level 2 Functionality An emerging Web standard called "WebDAV" (Web Distribution And Versioning) extends HTTP 1.1 to allow for more featureful HTTP file uploads, and document versioning control. Furthermore, it enables remote management of web folders and of user- and group-level access control lists. Catalina has built-in support for WebDAV Level 2, a high level of support that lets administrators create collaborative web sites for their users, supporting web site management from WebDAV-aware clients like Microsoft Office 2000, among others.
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