Welcome to the WSO2 Application Server Documentation
The WSO2 Application Server (AS) is an enterprise-ready, fully-open source application server based on the component-based, WSO2 Carbon platform. It utilizes Apache Tomcat and is capable of hosting any kind of Web application deployable in Tomcat. The WSO2 AS also has extensive Web service management capabilities. Users have the capability to simply and effectively create, consume and manage their applications and services in a unified manner through the Application Server's "Management Console" user-interface.
Unlike many over-bloated, proprietary solutions, WSO2 has created a new platform that cuts out unnecessary layers, supporting the full WS-* stack in a simple, clean, lightweight model. It has full support for XML, SOAP, WSDL, is reliable, scalable and supports secure communication and transactional integration based on the concept of loose coupling. Web applications inherit features such as authentication/authorization, user management from the WSO2 Carbon platform.
The WSO2 Application Server brings together a number of open source projects into a single, seamless, easy-to-use offering. Instead of having you to download different parts of the Apache Web services stack separately and assemble them together, WSO2 has already done that for you. With the WSO2 AS, you get a single, integrated package with lots of additional features which are inherited from the powerful WSO2 Carbon platform.
Open Source Components of the WSO2 Application Server
- Apache Axis2 (SOAP)
- Apache Axiom (High performance XML Object Model)
- Apache Rampart/Apache WSS4J (WS-Security, WS-SecureConversation)
- Apache Rahas (WS-Trust)
- Apache Sandesha2 (WS-ReliableMessaging)
- WS-Addressing implementation in Axis2
- Apache Neethi (WS-Policy)
- WS-SecurityPolicy implementation in Axis2
- Apache XML Schema
- Embedded Apache Tomcat
- Apache Tribes (Group Communications Framework)
WS-* Support
- SOAP 1.1/1.2
- WSDL 1.1
- WSDL 2.0
- JAX-WS 2.2
- MTOM, XOP & SOAP with Attachments
- WS-Addressing
- WS-Security
- WS-Trust
- WS-SecureConversation
- WS-MetaDataExchange
- WS-SecurityPolicy
- WS-ReliableMessaging
- WS-Policy
- WS-PolicyAttachment
- WS-MetadataExchange
- WS-Transfer
- WS-Discovery
WSO2 contributes to the Apache Software Foundation's Web services project through a combination of leading open source components. Our integration code including the unified management console is available under the Apache Software License version 2.0.
About the Documentation
The purpose of this documentation is to provide you with information for installing, configuring and implementing WSO2 AS. The documentation topics are provided on separate pages. All pages are organized into a hierarchy of parent and child pages.
To find a specific topic in a particular section, click on the topic name in the Table of Contents which is located on the left of every page. The table of contents reflects a physical (tree) structure of pages in the "Application Server" space. Note that a plus sign next to the topic name means that the topic contains sub pages. To access the sub pages, click on the plus sign thereby expanding the topic structure.
A list of the child pages, if any, is displayed at the bottom of the page. Clicking on a link takes you to the corresponding child page. To hide the list of children, click on the "Hide Children" link. The defaults of the "Show" or "Hide" children view based on your preference from your last visit to the site.
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Getting Started for First-time Users
The following topics introduce the WSO2 AS architecture and components. It also provides some basic information on application servers in general for first-time users.