[skifozoa]

I'm experimenting a bit with google app engine. However I fail to see the difference with a classical webserver / webhost. This is probably due to my lack of understanding / lack of knowledge on GAE features. Please enlighten me.

I'm talking functionality here, apparently there are differences in scalability and performance, but functionality wise I identify the following:

- Serving static pages on HTTP requests
- Server side scripting / servlets that answer HTTP request
- Storage functionality + Query language.

What's the difference with for example a classical LAMP/XAMP server, an IIS server with MSSQL or an appache tomcat server + MySQL for JSP and Java servlets?

I thought the difference would be in the ability to run applications that run independently from HTTP requests, set up custom sockets, etc... Or can this be accomplished with backends?

Thanks for your opinons.