Server technology started with transaction-processing systems in the sixties. Database Management Systems (DBMS) soon adopted mechanism like multi-process and multi-threading. In distributed systems, the remote procedure call also needed process structures at the server side. The same is true for file servers, object servers (CORBA), Web servers, application servers, EJB containers, and Web Services. All these systems support a request-response behavior, sometimes enhanced with a session concept. They are facing thousands of requests per second and must manage thousands of session contexts at the same time. While programming the applications that run on the servers and actually process the requests should be as simple as possible, efficiency must still be very high. So a general programming environment should be defined that is easy to use and, on the other hand, allows for the efficient execution of thousands of program instances in parallel. This contribution will identify mechanisms that have been developed in the context of transaction processing and database management. It will then generalize them to server processing of any kind. This includes program structures, context management, multi-tasking and multi-threading, process structures, program management, naming, and transactions. The driving force behind the discussion is to avoid the re-invention of the wheel that far too often occurs in computer science, mostly in ignorance of older and presumably outdated systems.