Web Communication

Organizations with varying responsibilities and business functions are increasingly facing the need to provide Web-based services for users within the enterprise, other data centers, and the outside world. To provide these services, they need to deploy Web server-based architectures that are highly available, secure, and scalable. In addition, such architectures should lend themselves to monitoring and auditing, as well as the ability to absorb changes without significantly affecting the services they provide.

Web application services provide an organization with a mechanism for offering an application interface on the Web. This interface may be for external customers, as is the case for Internet-based service organizations, or for internal Web applications that share information and workflow among various teams or with partners. The following scenarios are typical in that they represent the kinds of functionality that many of today's organizations need to provide. The list, though far from complete, provides an insight into the amalgamation of Web-based technologies along with the mode and type of services offered by an organization:

• E-Commerce application (Internet Business)
• Organization Web presence
• Intranet Web sites
• Offline sales support
• Partner interface
• Custom applications