The Basics of Web ServersGet Web Design Tips and Tricks on mps-web-design.com. The Basics of Web Servers topic will increase your understanding on Web Design Tips and Tricks. We at mps-web-design.com only provide news, articles, information in Web Design Tips and Tricks. Web Design Tips and Tricks at mps-web-design.com provides the most up to date news and articles. If you have questions please do not hesitate to contact us.
What is a Web Server? A web server is really just a powerful computer - they use the same kinds of processors and memory that normal computers use, but they have more of it. Servers usually run a Unix or Unix-like operating system like Linux or BSD, but they can just as easily run Windows. What makes these computers servers isn't their hardware - it's the software they run. Web server software includes the HTTP server itself, as well as databases and other things that are needed to make a web server work however it needs to. This is why different hosts offer different features: they have different programs installed on their servers. Web Servers Serve Files The role of the web server, at its most basic level, is to send people your files over HTTP. It has a hard disk (often more than one) and stores your files like any other computer - if you don't upload a file called 'index.html', many servers will list all your files for you instead of providing a web page. It's the replacement of the index.html (named because it is supposed to be an index of files) that creates the illusion of everything on the server being one 'web site', instead of a set of files linked together. Web Servers Run Scripts Of course, web servers don't always just serve the same files over and over again. Sometimes they need to insert other information into pages, especially information that comes from databases. This is done with scripting languages like PHP and Perl - the server is told that it should give files that end in .pl or .php to the appropriate script interpreters, and these interpreters then tell the server what to send to the browser. This means that dynamic websites can often be slow, as the server is having to produce a different page for each visitor. Virtual Servers and Dedicated Servers When you buy web hosting, though, you're not necessarily getting a whole server to yourself - in fact, the chances are that you're not, unless you're paying lots of money. Instead, you'll be sharing a server with the hosts' other customers. You might not realise this, since the server doesn't appear to have anything on it that isn't yours, but the other customers are simply being hidden from you - you're using what is known as a 'virtual server'. For small websites, there isn't really any option other than virtual servers: they're a great idea for letting resources be shared among lots of websites that don't use much of the server's power or space. If one of the sites does start growing, though, you might find your website slowing down. Oddly enough, this fact means that it's often better to find a host that offers price plans with limits instead of one that offers 'unlimited' disk space and bandwidth to each customer - your website will be much faster at the 'limited' host. More Than You'd Think One thing that people don't often think about is that there's more than one web server program out there. It's not really visible to visitors, since they all do basically the same thing, but there are lots of servers available, and they're all quite different in the way they work. There are three main groups: Apache. The open source Apache software is the most popular server software out there, with around 70% of the market share. Microsoft servers. Microsoft are responsible for the various versions of IIS (Internet Information Server) and PWS (Personal Web Server), which altogether have around 20% of the market. Sun servers. Sun produce lots of servers, most notably the Netscape-branded ones. The market share of these servers depends on whether you count all sites (making it 3%) or just the actively maintained ones (in which case it drops to less than 1%). Source for statistics: netcraft.com.
Other servers available are mostly 'simple' servers that don't have all the somewhat unnecessary features of these servers, such as thttpd (the 't' is for tiny or turbo). There are literally hundreds of them, but they have mostly negligible market share.
Article Index: | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 59 | 60 | 61 | 62 | 63 | 64 | 65 | 66 | 67 | 68 | 69 | 70 | 71 | 72 | 73 | 74 | 75 | 76 | 77 | 78 | 79 |
More Articles:1. How to Make Money Even When Visitors Leave Your Site orry to have to tell you this but not everybody who comes to your site is going to like it. No matter how much you put into designing it, no matter how good your content is, there's someone out there who's just not gonna dig it. Personalities are personalities and the best way you can prepare for this is to do the best job you can creating content and NOT, I repeat NOT, trying to please everyone who comes to your site. Let's look at why you can't please everyone who visits your site. The main re… 2. Protecting Your Website From Online Thieves - Part 2 Prevention cures copyright In this design article, we will go over the most important steps to take for protecting your web site and web graphic images from these online thieves. 1. Place a copyright notice on every web page The first thing to do is display your copyright notice on the bottom of your home page - and preferably on all pages of your web site. This copyright notice should be followed by the year of publication and your company name, such as: © 1997-2006, Swift Media UK. All rights … 3. GET INTERACTIVE AND GAIN CUSTOMERS! According to a new survey carried out by Alliance & where ID_NUM=9270;Leicester, one in five small business owners view tax astheir greatest concern. The Chancellor has announced in hislast budget that companies with profits below œ10,000 willnot have to pay any corporation tax with effect from 1 April2002. The question to be asked is: does that announcementmake incorporation a more attractive option compared tobeing a sole trader?The answer is that from a tax point of view, it isadvantageo… 4. Mobile Accessibility - Your website in the year 2005 Instant Article Submitter. - Amazing Breakthrough Software Stuffs Any Website You Want Full Of Free Targeted Traffic.15,000 Mb Hosting For $4.95/mo. - 4.95 web hosting, Free domain registration! Free setup and online website builder included.… |
||||
