I was trying "How I set up GeoServer on an old machine" and By @iant I was setting up Tomcat and all.
I suddenly had a question ... why do we need MapServer and GeoServer?
Can these servers pull data from the database layer as the user asks and only presenting what user has asked from the database?
Answer
The simple answer is that you don't need them, but it makes life much easier. You have to have some sort of server element between your database and the web browser: so you can either write your own server in PhP (or java or whatever) and handle all the vagaries of the database you are using and sort out the wire transfer formats etc and do the debugging and testing. Or you can stand on the 131 person-years that have gone in to GeoServer's development ( or the 53 person years of MapServer) and start serving maps this afternoon.
And all that is before I start my standard rant about standards and why letting anyone who can implement the standard consume your maps in their client with out any extra coding on your or their part is a good thing.
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