WildFly 8 core concepts

Now that we have downloaded and installed WildFly 8, it is worth spending a few minutes familiarizing ourselves with some basic concepts. The architecture and most of the core ideas are taken straight from JBoss AS 7; although, there are some new mechanisms that were introduced with the newest version (for example, role-based security for the management system, reduced number of used ports, and a new patching system). Just like JBoss AS 7, WildFly can be run in two modes: the standalone mode and domain mode.

In the standalone mode, each WildFly instance is an independent process (similar to the previous JBoss AS versions, such as Version 4, Version 5, Version 6, and the standalone mode in Version 7). The standalone configuration files are located under the standalone/configuration directory of the application server.

In the domain mode, you can run multiple application servers and manage them from a central point. A domain can span multiple physical (or virtual) machines...