Installing/Configuring JBoss for future scalability

[creigrut]

I've seen a lot of posts that seem to tangentially touch on this issue, but I'm hoping that the community can provide me some direct insight.

I'm looking to create an infrastructure that will allow me to deploy a variety of web-based content, ranging from purely static HTML to JSP-based dynamic content to full-fledged J2EE-based enterprise systems (both thin- and thick-client).

My original thinking was to go the Apache-Tomcat-JBoss route. However, it doesn't seem that JBoss is particulary happy working with an external Tomcat (and difficult to configure), and it would also seem that not being able to distribute Tomcat and JBoss separately between machines would be a drawback. Is my thinking correct? Am I better off with Apache + JBoss (w/ embedded Tomcat), or Apache + JBoss + standalone Tomcat? The latter would seem preferable since I could then individually scale the static, dynamic and EJB servers individually. What are the drawbacks?

The JBoss/Jetty combination is intriguing as well. Will Jetty keep pace with Apache as a server for static content? And how is it relative to Tomcat 4.x for dynamic content? When scaling, would one simply cluster JBoss/Jetty servers, or would you need to (if it is even possible) start separating JBoss and Jetty onto their own machines?

Thanks in advance for your insights...

[adrian.brock]

This article might interest you.
http://www.onjava.com/pub/a/onjava/2001/09/18/jboss.html

It does not include clustering which comes with JBoss 3.0

Regards,
Adrian

[rgjawanda]

you are right on the money as far as I can see.
I have configured tomcat and JBOss 2.4.4 separately without a problem however it took me 5 weeks to set it up and unless you are really really patient OR just won't let it go (like me) you are in for a real treat.

the only way to scale is have them separate. how can a web server and an application server run on the same box and be scalable?
I am no expert but for me separate boxes is the only way.

If you need questions or examples I have done them. It was awful but now that I am done I am happy.