What is the difference between IBM HTTP Server vs Wepsphere Application Server?

Question 1

From here:-

IBM HTTP Server

IBM® HTTP Server is a full-featured web server that is included with other products such as IBM WebSphere® Application Server at no charge. You can use this web server for projects that do not warrant the expense of a priced and supported HTTP server. The IBM HTTP Server is based on the Apache HTTP Server and provides a rich set of Apache features in addition to IBM enhancements.

From here:-

Wepsphere Application Server

IBM® WebSphere® Application Server offers options for a faster, more flexible Java application server runtime environment with enhanced reliability and resiliency. It supports single server environments and medium-sized configurations, as well as dynamic web applications requiring web tier clustering over multiple application server instances.

Do i still need the IBM HTTP Server?

Wiki has the answer for it:-

It works with a number of Web servers including Apache HTTP Server, Netscape Enterprise Server, Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS), IBM HTTP Server for i5/OS, IBM HTTP Server for z/OS, and IBM HTTP Server for AIX/Linux/Microsoft Windows/Solaris. It uses port 9060 for connection as the default administration port and port 9080 as the default website publication port. In case you install more WebSphere instances these values will be changed.

Question 2

A http server is used for routing web requests to a WAS in a typical enterprise scenario. If you are building small apps, and do not need ejbs, just use the http server. If you need ejbs, just use WAS. However, if you need functionality like routing requests to WAS because you do not want the user to hit the WAS directly for security reasons, then use HTTP in front of WAS.

Question 3

WebSphere is an implementation of J2EE (originally Java 2 but versions handle up to J6EE). This varies from a normal web server in that the latter typically had the task of running scripts or programs using operations that were quite expensive for CPU load. Modern web servers do not have as much penalty but Java based solutions still have their advantages.

For test/dev environments, one does not need to have a web server in front. One can go directly to a WebSphere port (often port 9080) that provides a Java web implementation and not have the administrative burden of the care and feeding of a web server. On the other hand, IBM recommends using a web server for production (especialy for larger production loads). If one does use a web server, there are several that are supported. IBM HTTPS Server is a blue-washed version of Apache (there are some modules that are not supported but there are also lots of extra features to bind easily with WAS).

Question 4

All the answers are good so let me give my cents , Websphere as other java applications, was made to work with dinamic contents . apache or IHS that is apache IBM plugins can handle with all kinds of http/https requests , static , dinamic , proxy ,cache at the client tags, balance and so on ... just using apache over java aplications is not the best , the best is allow apache handle all static downloads without call it from application server , like images and fixed htmls and left application server handle the just dinamic contents . at this way we can optimize the environment , so development should create a pattern to dispose static and dinamic at different virtual direct like /jsp for dinamic and the rest as static , if not apache cache can be used instead for not overload the application server . to make the story short , apache is so powerful ans can help a lot the application server sparing the work , a simple and effective usage is done to forward the port using default port 80/443 for http/https instead usual high ports on java application servers , make the apache deliver https is a best option too , instead left java application server care of it , so there is a lot of reasons to use Apache or IHS in front of application servers.