Chapter 3. Windows Server AppFabric Primer

An application server hosts business logic (applications or services) in a multitier architecture and provides a rich set of capabilities for building robust, high-performing solutions. From an end-user standpoint, an application server needs to satisfy a set of criteria such as offering a highly available hosting environment for web and desktop applications, enabling durable storage through technologies such as message queues or databases, and providing enterprise monitoring and management infrastructure. In addition, the platform should provide an easy development and deployment framework so that the application server is compelling enough for a user.

Today, Windows Server provides several rich capabilities, some of which have already been mentioned above. Recently, Microsoft strengthened the Windows application server offering by making available a set of key enhancements which will provide unified hosting and monitoring for WCF and WF applications...