Web server performance techonologies and tools

Active Server Pages (ASP)

ASP is a scripting platform and is a part of Microsoft’s Internet Information Server. In particular, it provides interfaces to other Microsoft products and technologies such as SQL Server, COM and .NET. For the scripting language, ASP uses VBScript (which is similar to Microsoft Visual Basic) or JScript (which is Microsoft’s server-side version of JavaScript).
A third-party implementation, Sun’s ChiliSoft ASP, will run ASP on a range of non-Microsoft platforms and servers.

CGI

CGI (Common Gateway Interface) is a basic standard for web servers to interact with programmed content. All web servers support CGI.

CGI programs can be written in any programming language. The most common being Perl. CGIs are usually less flexible than scripted web pages, but are easier to install and run.

ColdFusion

Cold Fusion is a complete authoring system made by Macromedia (formerly Allaire). Scripting instructions are usually embedded in pages using CFML, with the help of the Cold Fusion Studio programming environment.

It has a wide range of third party libraries available and runs on a variety of operating systems.

Java Server Pages (JSP) / J2EE

Java Server Pages are written using Sun’s cross-platform programming language, Java. However, they work on a very similar basis to other scripting languages, and can be served by any one of a number of ‘Servlet containers’, the most popular of which is the free Open Source Tomcat server (now part of the Apache Foundation).

J2EE is a more ambitious specification for building entire “web applications.” It is used in very large enterprise-scale projects. JBoss, is an open source J2EE server.

Lotus Notes and Domino

Lotus uses the Domino name to refer to a set of Notes server applications specifically designed for web usage. Notes itself refers to the overall product.

A Domino server can effectively be configured to serve an Intranet-style GroupWare solution implemented in Notes, on the Internet.

It is a solution for projects where integration with an existing Notes network is required.

Mediasurface

MediaSurface is another example of a product that enables the development of complete dynamically published websites and the collateral content management systems. It also uses the Oracle RDBMS as the repository for the website data. It has its own built-in web server.

Perl

Perl is one of the first all-purpose scripting languages. It excels at fast text processing, and is widely used. An important feature is the enormous range of third party libraries available. It can be used to create dynamic pages both using CGI scripts, or special server modules like mod_perl for Apache.

PHP Hypertext Pre-processor

PHP is also a scripting system. It runs on most web servers and operating system platforms. It is Open Source software, and therefore free.Its main features are speed at runtime and fast development speed. It has a large library of third party components, and can interface with COM, CORBA, MySQL, etc.

Vignette Storyserver

Vignette Story server is an example of a product that enables the development of complete dynamically published websites and the collateral content management systems. It uses a version of the TCL scripting language and the Oracle RDBMS as the repository for the website data.

Zope

Zope serves pages written using the cross-platform scripting language, Python. It can use its internal database or external databases for storing content. It also comes with a number of basic content management needs provided for ‘out of the box’.