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That was exactly what I was looking for. Unfortunately, it means that I can't support the application, but at least I know it now. The original developer is unavailable.
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Explain Like I'm Five: What is Apache Tomcat, what does it do, and--particular to my situation--how would one use it to power a document search engine (I inherited a broken document search application that is run on Tomcat, and I don't know enough about it to even ask the appropriate questions for help)?
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Explain Like I'm Five: What is Apache Tomcat, what does it do, and--particular to my situation--how would one use it to power a document search engine (I inherited a broken document search application that is run on Tomcat, and I don't know enough about it to even ask the appropriate questions for help)?

ELI5: Apache Tomcat

The Apache HTTP Server is a secure, efficient and extensible server that provides HTTP services in sync with the current HTTP standards. Typically Apache is run on a Unix-like operating system, but it is available for a wide variety of operating systems, including Linux, Novell NetWare, Mac OS-X and Windows. Released under the Apache License, Apache is open-source software.