snaps-guide/src/introduction.xml

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<!DOCTYPE chapter PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.5//EN"
		"http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.5/docbookx.dtd">
<chapter id="introduction">
	<title>Introduction</title>
	<para>
		This Guide covers @snaps.product.name@ and assumes you are already familiar with OSGi and @project.name@. See <link linkend="further-reading">here</link>.
	</para>
	
	<section id="introduction-concepts">
		<title>Concepts</title>
		<para>
			Using @snaps.product.name@, or @snaps.product.name.short@ for short, you can construct a web application from multiple OSGi 
			bundles, each of which serves up content for a distinct sub-portion of your application's URL space. @snaps.product.name.short@ 
			applications are arranged in a parent/child structure, with each application having at most one top-level parent, and zero or more 
			children/grand children and so on. Parents are referred to as the hosts, children as snaps.
		</para>
		<para>
			<imagedata fileref="images/snapsAndHosts.png"/>
		</para>
		<para>
			Here you see that any <literal>HTTP</literal> requests for '/app' will be dealt with by the host bundle while '/app/orders' 
			and '/app/billing' will be dealt with by their respective snaps bundles. Each host/snap can use completely different web technologies 
			to deal with the requests, @snaps.product.name.short@ places no restrictions on your choices. The developer decides how to split 
			the application up and how closely to couple the host and various snaps. @snaps.product.name.short@ has been designed to be as 
			un-invasive as possible while still making it easy to share information between the host and its snaps.
		</para>
	</section>
	
	<section id="introduction-prereqs">
		<title>Prerequisites</title>
		<para>
			@snaps.product.name.short@ requires @tomcat.product.name@ and Java SE 6 or later to be installed. Java is available from 
			<ulink url="http://www.java.com/">http://www.java.com/</ulink> and elsewhere. @tomcat.product.name@ is available from 
			<ulink url="http://www.eclipse.org/virgo/download/">here</ulink>.
		</para>
	</section>
	
</chapter>