Java Servlets versus CGI — Implications for Remote Data Analysis

Abstract

The Common Gateway Interface (CGI) was the rst attempt to enable the creation of dynamic HTML pages which represent a very suitable concept to meet the requirements of web-based applications for remote data analysis (RDA). CGI scripts are still popular, but by now there are new approaches which should be able to solve the main CGI problems. In this paper, we present the most promising one: Java Servlets. We will discuss the advantages and drawbacks of Java Servlets compared to CGI scripts. Moreover, we will do some performance measurements on the basis of simple classiication problems and introduce the key functions of the Java Servlet API.