Web Application Server and RMI

I'm looking for info on the use of RMI with Oracle's Web Application Server. It seems to me that the only way (well, maybe not the *only* way) to really get any use out of Java on the server side is if I can have applets on the client invoking methods on those server side applets. I guess in this case they aren't quite "server side", since they're executed via the Java Cartridge on the web server, but you know what I mean.

I'd like to use the remote objects to access the database via pl2java generated wrappers. I'm also interested in hearing about CORBA/IIOP type solutions, if anyone has any stories to share.

Thanks,

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joe