17

Browser sends request to webMathematica server.

webMathematica server acquires Mathematica kernel from the pool.

Mathematica kernel is initialized with input parameters, it carries out calculations, and returns result to 

server.

webMathematica server returns Mathematica kernel to the pool.

webMathematica server returns result to Browser.

1.5.1 Requirements

The aim of webMathematica and MSP technology is to reduce the amount of extra knowledge required for develop 

ing  a  site  to  a  minimum.  In  practice,  this  means  knowing  something  about  HTML  and  Mathematica.  You  do  not

need  any  special  knowledge  of  Java,  nor  do  you  need  to  know  anything  about  JavaScript.  webMathematica  also

aims  to  automate  the  management  of  the  site  to  make  running,  maintenance,  and  configuration  as  convenient  as

possible. Administrators of webMathematica sites do not need any knowledge of Java beyond its installation.

The minimum technical components for webMathematica are:

      A Servlet container supporting both the Servlet Specification 2.2 (or higher) and JSP Specification 1.2 (or 

higher)

      A Java Development Kit (JDK) 1.2 (or higher), Java 2 Version 1.4 (or higher) is recommended

There  are  many  different  combinations  of  hardware  and  operating  systems  that  support  these  components.  Most

systems  that  run  Mathematica  will  support  webMathematica.  At  present  Intel/Windows,  Intel/Linux,  Sun/Solaris,

IBM RISC/AIX,  PA RISC/HP UX,  Mac  OS  X,  Alpha/Tru64,  Alpha/Linux,  SGI  IRIX,  and  Linux  PPC  are  fully

supported.  For information on other  platforms, check with Wolfram  Research. Note that webMathematica will run

on many of the Microsoft operating systems such as Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows NT, Windows 98, and

Windows  95.  It  is  probably  better  to  use  webMathematica  on  Windows  95/98  only  for  testing  and  demonstration

purposes. Setting up the servlet container is discussed in a 

later section

.

If your servlet container only supports JSP 1.1 API you can still use webMathematica via the Classic webMathemat 

ica Technology as described in a later section.

 .