Web Servers

Web pages are a collection of data, including

images, text files, hyperlinks, database files
etc., all located on some computer (also
known as server space) on the Internet. A web
server is dedicated software that runs on the
server-side. When any user requests their web
browser to run any web page, the webserver
places all the data materials together into an
organized web page and forwards them back
to the web browser with the help of the
Internet.
A web server is a dedicated computer
responsible for running websites sitting out on
those computers somewhere on the Internet.
They are specialized programs that circulate
web pages as summoned by the user. The
primary objective of any web server is to
collect, process and provide web pages to the
users.
This intercommunication of a web server with a
web browser is done with the help of a protocol
named HTTP (Hypertext Transfer
Protocol). These stored web pages mostly use
static content, containing HTML documents,
images, style sheets, text files, etc. However, web
servers can serve static as well as dynamic
contents. Web Servers also assists in emailing
services and storing files. Therefore it also uses
SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) and FTP
(File Transfer Protocol) protocols to support the
respective services. Web servers are mainly used
in web hosting or hosting the website's data and
running web-based applications.
The hardware of the web servers are
connected to the Internet that manages the
data exchange facility within different
connected devices. In contrast, the software
of web server software is responsible for
controlling how a user accesses delivered files.
Typically, web server management is an ideal
example of the client/server model.
Therefore, it is compulsory for all computers
that host websites (whether with state or
dynamic web page content) to have web
server software.
Web servers are mostly used for:
• sending and receiving mails on Internet by
using SMTP (Simple Mail transfer Protocol);
• fetching requests for File Transfer Protocol
(FTP) files; and
• designing, developing, and publishing
websites.
 Web server software available in the market
1.Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS)
2. Apache HTTP Server
3.Nginx
4.Lighttpd
 What is IIS?
The term "IIS" stands for Internet Information Services, which is a
general-purpose webserver that runs on the Windows operating
system. The IIS accepts and responds to the client's computer
requests and enables them to share and deliver information across
the LAN (or Local Area Network) such as a corporate intranet and
the WAN (or Wide Area Network) the internet. It hosts the
application, websites, and other standard services needed by users
and allows developers to make websites, applications and virtual
directories to share with their users. A web server provides the
users with information in several different forms, such as File
exchanges as a download, uploads, Images files, HTML pages, and
text documents. The webservers are commonly used as a portal for
sophisticated and highly interactive websites, applications that tie
middleware and back-end applications together to make enterprise-
grade-systems. For example, AWS enables media services such as
Netflix to provide real-time streaming content. Amazon web
services also enable public cloud administration all through the
webservers.
Generally, the IIS is also compared with the Apache,
which is also a kind of web server that is freely
available for everyone. We can simply say that both
works the same except that the apache web server can
be used almost on any operating system such as
Windows, Linux, and Mac, While the IIS is only
available for windows. However, the IIS integrates with
Microsoft's other products, such as the .NET
Framework, the ASP scripting language. The IIS also has
its own helpdesk to manage and solve issues while, on
the other hand, the Apache webserver's supports
almost come from the user community. Additionally,
the IIS has the security features, which makes it a more
secure and efficient option than the Apache.
 Web hosting
• Web hosting is the service of providing storage space in
a web server to serve files
• for a website to be made available on the Internet. The
companies that provide web
• hosting services are called web hosts. Web hosts own
and manage web servers.
• These web servers offer uninterrupted Internet
connectivity, software packages for
• offering additional services such as databases and
support for programming
• languages such as PHP, Java, ASP.NET, etc.
 Types of web hosting
a. Shared hosting:
Shared web hosting is the most common type of web hosting.
It is referred to as shared because many different websites are stored on one single
web server and they share resources like RAM and CPU. The features available on
shared web servers are generally basic and are not flexible to suit a website that
require specific features like high bandwidth, large storage space, etc. Shared hosting
is most suitable for small websites that have less traffic. Shared servers are cheaper
and easy to use, since they are configured with the most popular options. The updates
and the security issues of the software installed in the web server are taken care of
by the hosting company itself. A drawback is that since the bandwidth is shared by
several websites, if any of these has a large volume of traffic, it will slow down all
other websites hosted in the shared server.
• b. Dedicated hosting:
Dedicated web hosting is the hosting where the client leases the
entire web server and all its resources. The web server is not shared
with any other website. Websites of large organisations,
government departments, etc. where there are large numbers of
visitors, opt for dedicated web hosting. Here, the client has the
freedom to choose the hardware and software for the server and
has full control over the web server. Dedicated servers provide
guaranteed performance,but they are very expensive. The
advantage of dedicated servers is that such servers are usually
hosted in data centers where the service provider facilitates
Internet connectivity, round-the-clock power supply, etc. and the
technical expertise for managing web servers. The cost of setting up
and managing these facilities is thus reduced for the client. Since
the bandwidth is not shared with other websites, it speeds up the
access of the website. If the client is allowed to place their own
purchased web server in the service providers facility, then it is
called co-location.
• c. Virtual Private Server:
A Virtual Private Server (VPS) is a physical server that
is virtually partitioned into several servers using the
virtualization technology. Each VPS works similar to a
dedicated server and has its own separate server
operating system, web server software and packages
like e-mail, databases, etc. installed in it.Unlike shared
hosting, VPS provides dedicated amount of RAM for
each virtual
web server. Each of these VPS works as a fully
independent web server, as if each were running on a
separate physical server. The users of VPS are provided
with the rights to install and configure any software on
their VPS. They are also given the right to restart their
VPS without affecting other virtual servers running on
the same physical server.
Types of web hosting
 Free hosting
Free hosting provides web hosting services free of
charge. The service provider displays advertisements in
the websites hosted to meet the expenses. Some free
web hosting sites provide the facility to upload the files
of our website in their server, but may place certain
restrictions on the files. The size of the files that can be
uploaded may be limited (supports upto 5 MB only),
audio/video files (mp3,mp4, etc.) may not be
permitted and so on. These websites usually provide
control panels to upload files from our computer to the
web server . Some other websites only permit us to
use the templates (pre-formatted designs) they provide
for designing websites. They do not allow external files
to be uploaded to their web server.
A free web site