1. An application server comprising: a protocol independent connection manager to receive a request from a client, the connection manager including a common dispatcher for at least two heterogeneous application server software suites of the application server, the connection manager to select which one of the heterogeneous application server software suites and which of a plurality of worker nodes included in one of the software suites is appropriate to process the request from the client and to dispatch the request to the selected worker node of the selected software suite, wherein selecting the worker node is based at least in part on whether a session associated with the request is an existing session, whether the session associated with the request is a new session, and a type of the session associated with the request, the type of the session indicating whether more than one worker node are permitted to handle requests for the session; a first software suite of the heterogeneous application server software suites configured to receive and process the request from the client, the first software suite including a first plurality of worker nodes, the first software suite comprising a proprietary application instance; a second software suite of the heterogeneous application server software suites, the second software suite being different from the first software suite, the second software suite being configured to receive and process the request from the client, the second software suite including a second plurality of worker nodes, the second software suite comprising a standard-based application instance; and a request/response shared memory that is accessible to the connection manager, the first software suite, and the second software suite, wherein the connection manager is to transfer the request to the request/response shared memory, the request/response shared memory to support data transfers for requests and responses for both the first software suite and the second software suite, and wherein the selected worker node is to retrieve the request from the request/response shared memory.