If you are new to Java programming, you might have heard about Tomcat, but what exactly does it mean? After learning core Java, if you want to go into the business world, if you want to work on websites or suppose you want to make your own web application using Java, then of course you have to work on servlets. What is a servlet? If you are familiar with websites or the web world you must have heard about HTTP(hyper text transfer protocol). If you want to provide a web service or any static content using HTML or maybe you just want to send data from a server to a client, you need a server and that server is HTTP. So if you want to make a static website you need a HTTP server but to make it dynamic we need servlets. So we use HTTP only for fetching data but if you want to send dynamic data then you need a servlet. Thus, we need a HTTP server where you will run your servlets. Tomcat will combine your HTTP server and servlet to give you one server. Effectively, Tomcat is a HTTP server and a servlet container. Tomcat has got Apache license and is handled by Apache Software Foundation(ASF). Tomcat is not the only server available in the market there are other servers available as well.
Tomcat is the result of an open collaboration of developers and is available from the Apache website in both binary and source versions. Tomcat can be used as either a standalone product with its own internal web server or together with other web servers, including Apache, Netscape Enterprise Server, Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS) and Microsoft Personal Web Server. Tomcat requires a Java Runtime Enterprise Environment that conforms to JRE 1.1 or later.