1.4 Deliver Dynamic Content

Dynamic web content is the content that changes with every user request. This type of web application let the users personalize the content according to their preferences.

To build such a powerful web app, you need Java technologies, like servlet and JSP. Web Server is mostly designed to serve static HTML content. For this type of app, web server needed a servlet plugin that can communicate with or build dynamic pages.

Servlet plugin is also called as servlet container or web container.

Servlets were Java's first server-side web technology. A Servlet is an ordinary Java class that implements a special Servlet interface. This class is then deployed in a Servlet container. The servlet container is connected to a web server. When an HTTP request arrives at the web server which should be handled by a servlet, the web server forwards the request to the servlet container. The servlet container then forwards the request to the servlet that is to handle the request.

Today most servlet containers come with built-in web servers, so you do not often make the distinction between a Java web server and a Java servlet container. Examples of Java web servers with servlet containers are Apache Tomcat, GlassFish, Jetty, JBoss etc.

In next section, we will learn how to install Tomcat server in eclipse development environment.