How is K2 related to an Application Server?
An application server provides an integrated environment for server side software. By an integrated environment, we mean an integration of existing distributed technologies like component oriented, object oriented and message oriented middleware. We will also be provided with Directory service, Event service, Transaction service, Persistence service and Security Service. Additional services can be integrated into the application server through standardized interfaces. In addition to providing an integrated environment, application servers provide the required scalability and reliability for server side development. Here the emphasis is placed on industrial strength load balancing and fault tolerance implementation. A good application server will support scaling up (increasing the hardware capacity of the server) and scaling out (supporting clusters/farms of application servers providing transparent access to components living within the server process). An inherent ability to tolerate
