A "Three-tier" Web Application

For the final project you should develop a a Web application that incorporates

• an HTML-form-based Web front end,
• a middle tier consisting of a group of servlets and/or JavaServer pages,
• access to an SQL database through JDBC, and that
• supports multiple concurrent clients and exploits servlet session tracking mechanisms in a useful way.

Your application must include at least one servlet. It may optionally include some JSP pages as well (this may lead to extra credit). You should use the high-level session tracking APIs in preference to explicit use of cookies, hidden fields, etc.

You may choose build on your the client/server applications developed in a previous homeworks, or you may start with a new application. If you choose to extend your simple client/server application, you must ensure you add sufficiently complex behaviors to cover all the requirements above. In particular the application must involve some non-trivial "session state" (akin to a shopping cart), to exploit session-tracking in a meaningful way.

If you choose to start with a new application, possible projects include business models such as:

• A simplified airline reservation system. Servlets or JSP pages would access a database that kept files with airplane flight schedules, and passengers who have made reservations for each flight. The client could request flight information and make a reservation for a particular flight.
• An online store with a shopping cart system. The database may store products, shoppers, and orders.

Submission of your Homework

• A project report document describing the application and its implementation. This should preferably be written as a Word document or HTML document. It should be laid out and read like a paper or user's guide. There is no fixed length, but 2000+ words is a reasonable size. Include URLs and any special instructions necessary for restarting your Web server. You should copy this file to /home/project/it1fall00/homework5/login/ on sirah, where login is your login id (user name) on this machine.
• The .html and .java and .jsp source files you develop should be left in the installation directory for your Tomcat server, which should be in the home directory of your sirah account.
• Example database tables should be installed under your Oracle account on sirah. Instructions for accessing this account will be given in class.

Grading

For this project, there will be a total of 40 points. This may account for 30-40% of your final grade. You should invest effort accordingly.

In general grading criteria are similar to Assignment 1. In this project points will be substantially assigned on the basis of apparent effort and uniqueness. To get a high grade some certain minimum level of complexity is expected in your application. A system with around 6 inter-related servlets or JSP pages, 2 database tables, and one or more static HTML pages would be reasonable (these are guidelines only). Moderately realistic example databases make a good impression; tables with very few entries do not. You should aim for an attractively designed Web sites with clear logic.

Resources and Tips

Servlet examples

JDBC examples

JSP examples