Apache Tomcat, part of the Jakarta Project, is the reference implementation for the Servlet/JSP specification and is an excellent Servlet/JSP engine for development, training or production applications.
-- mailto:lawless@maths.tcd.ie
(moved from TomCat page)
The open-source J2EE web container run by the Jakarta Project at Apache Software Foundation. Easy to setup and easy to run. May be integrated with many web servers including IIS, Netscape and Apache, or can run as a stand-alone server. Excellent for servlet and Java Server Pages based applications.
CLASSPATH Issues
From www.mail-archive.com 
and specifically: www.mail-archive.com
Tomcat 3.3.1
CLASSPATH
Out of the box, the NT service also ignores your CLASSPATH. You are always free to add "wrapper.classpath" properties to your "wrapper.properties" file to include additional locations in your classpath. Depending on your application, this may or may not result in Class Loader problems.
The other method (the one I prefer) is to set: wrapper.jvm.options=-Dorg.apache.tomcat.apps.classpath=
This has the same effect as dumping them in $TOMCAT_HOME\lib\apps.
wrapper.properties
In regards to wrapper.propeties Larry Isaacs put it so well at www.mail-archive.com
The main purpose of wrapper.properties is to tell jk_nt_service how to construct the Java command to execute to start tomcat. This command supports the same capabilities as starting Tomcat from the batch scripts.
Very useful information from www.mail-archive.com is below
People have learned about "wrapper.jvm.options" from reading the comments in the default wrappers.properties file.
To save yourself headaches with quotes, "wrapper.jvm.options" can be repeated (and jk_nt_service will concatenate them). example:
wrapper.jvm.options=-Dorg.apache.tomcat.apps.classpath=C:\SourceW\VSS\src;C:
\SourceW\ja\src;C:\SourceW\VSS\lib\xerces.jar;C:\SourceW\lib\xml4j.jar
wrapper.jvm.options=-Xrs
Other:
3.2.x to 3.3. info
jakarta.apache.org
November 2002 The current version is now 4.1.12 and its very easy to setup. A manager application and various examples are included.
The current version is now 4.1.24.
jakarta.apache.org
Version 5 is on the way
See original on c2.com