Tomcat is a servlet container, which is a runtime shell that manages and invokes servlets when they are requested by a Web browser or by another servlet. Servlets are programs that run on a Web server and automatically generate Web pages as a result of user input. Two or more servlets working together to provide a common set of functions is referred to as a Web application.
Web servers, such the Apache Web server, also included with Open Enterprise Server (OES) NetWare®, depend on a servlet container like Tomcat to process JavaServer Pages (JSPs) and servlets.
Tomcat is developed under a larger project named Jakarta. Jakarta is a collaboration between Apache developers, major corporate sponsors, smaller companies, and individual private developers. Like the Apache project, Jakarta is an open source project. Open source means that the source code is freely available.
Tomcat is the reference implementation from Sun* Microsystems*. It implements the servlet specification 2.3 and the JSP specification 1.2.
For more information about the Jakarta Project, visit the Jakarta Project Web site
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