The OpenEdge Application Server and its components provide the core technologies for developing application services in OpenEdge. Some components of the OpenEdge Application Server (for example, OpenEdge Web services) also support the development of integration services.

The two core technologies that form the basis of application service support in OpenEdge include the OpenEdge AppServer™ and WebSpeed®, both of which support the development of application services using Advanced Business Language (ABL) and the WebSpeed variant, SpeedScript®. The AppServer supports OpenEdge sessions that run ABL procedures (remote procedures) that are invoked from requests sent by client programs running in separate application sessions that are often running on separate machines. In response, the AppServer returns the results of each remote procedure execution as output parameters or return values as though executed in the same session as the client. As such, the remote procedures available on a single AppServer platform combine to create an application service that is available to clients designed to access it.

WebSpeed supports SpeedScript sessions that run SpeedScript procedures (called Web objects) that are invoked from HTTP Get and Post requests sent over the Internet from a Web browser (HTTP client) and passed by a Web server to the appropriate WebSpeed session. In response, WebSpeed returns the results of each Web object execution as an HTML page that can be interpreted and displayed in the Web browser. As such, the Web objects available on a single WebSpeed platform combine to create an application service that is available to any HTTP client with access to the Web site that handles the WebSpeed requests. Thus, WebSpeed is specialized to provide application services to Web browser clients.

Additional components, such as Web services tools and the Open Client Toolkit, enhance the accessibility and availability of application services provided by these core technologies. For more information on Web services tools, see Integration service support. The Open Client Toolkit supports the Web services tools and also supports the development of non-ABL clients that can directly access AppServer application services. For more information on Open Client support, see OpenEdge Open Clients

For more information on how the OpenEdge Application Server supports application service development, deployment, and management, see OpenEdge Application Server Architecture