Oracle Essentials: Oracle9i, Oracle8i and Oracle8, Second Edition

Oracle Internet Application Server

The Oracle Internet Application Server (iAS) was introduced with Oracle8i, and a new version of the product, known as Oracle9iAS, is included with Oracle9i. iAS is a product specifically designed to address the needs of the middle tier of the Internet computing platform. In creating iAS, Oracle made a fairly decisive statement. They combined a number of different products into a single server package and built this new package around the most popular web server on the market, the Apache server, which happens to be an open source product. Finally, they added in some new functionality with caching and Clickstream Intelligence; these features are described later in this chapter.

Together, the Oracle Database Server and iAS make up what Oracle refers to as the Oracle Internet computing platform.

There are really two motivations for this change in product strategy:

Simplicity

Oracle now has two deployment platforms: the Oracle Database Server and iAS. In fact, when you buy iAS, you get all the components described in this section, whether you want them or not.

Portability

By including the same PL/SQL and JVM as well as a caching system that works transparently with server data in iAS, the iAS product makes it easy for you to create your application systems and then deploy them in the way that is most optimal for your own particular situation. You can run Java or PL/SQL code in the Database Server or iAS, and you can move static tables between the database ...