WEBSERVERS – HARDWARE, SOFTWARE & WEBSERVER TOOLS

PRESENTED BY

AMBILI BABY, NO:03

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• The components of a web server are:– Hardware– Software

• When determining what sort of server hardwareand software to use you have to consider:– Size of the site– Purpose of the site– Traffic on the site

• A small, noncommercial Web site will requireless resources than a large, commercial site.

Web servers

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• Facilitates business– Business to business transactions– Business to customer transactions

• Hosts company applications• Part of the communications infrastructure

Poor decisions about web server platforms canhave a negative impact on a company. This isparticularly true for purely online (“click andmortar”) companies.

The role of a web server

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Will the site be hosted in-house or by a provider?Factors to consider:• The bandwidth and availability needed for the

expected size, traffic, and sales of the site• Scalability: If the Web site needs to grow or has

a sudden increase in traffic, can the providerstill handle it?

• Budget and cost effectiveness of the solution• Target audience: Business-to-customer (B2C) or

business-to-business (B2B)

Hosting considerations

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• Development sites: A test site; low-cost• Intranets: Available internally only

• B2B and B2C commerce sites• Content delivery site

Each type of site has a different purpose,requires different hardware and software,and incurs varying costs.

Types of Web sites

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Commerce sites must be available 24 hours a day,7 days a week. Requirements include:

• Reliable servers• Backup servers for high availability• Efficient and easily upgraded software• Security software• Database connectivity

B2B sites also require certificate servers to issue and analyze electronic authentication information.

Commerce sites

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• Examples: USA Today New York Times Manoramaonline

• Sell and deliver content: news, summaries, histories, other digital information.

• Hardware requirements are similar to thecommerce sites.

• Database access must be efficient.

Content delivery site

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Web Clients and Web Servers

• Client/server architectures

– Client computers request services

– A server processes the clients’ requests

• Web software is platform neutral, meaning that it lets different types of servers communicate with a variety of clients

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Two-Tier Client/Server Architecture

• Two-tier client/server architecture has one client and one server

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Three-Tier and N-Tier Client/Server Architectures

• Three-tier architecture

– Extends two-tier architecture to allow additional processing (e.g., collection of data from a database) before responses to requests are made

• N-tier architectures

– Higher-order architectures

– Third tier includes software applications that interactively supply and update information to and from the web server

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• Hardware, operating system, and application server software must be considered together since eachaffects the other.

• Whatever your choice you must ensure that the server hardware is scalable, meaning that it can beupgraded or a new server added as necessary.

• Other needs, such as a database server, should behandled by separate hardware. Database productshave large processing needs.

Web platform choices

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• Hardware and operating system choice• Speed of connection to the Internet• User capacity

– Throughput: The number of HTTP requeststhat can be processed in a given time period.

– Response time: The amount of time a serverrequires to process one request.

• The mix and type of Web pages– Static pages– Dynamic pages: Shaped in response to users.

Factors in performance

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• Benchmarking is testing used to compare theperformance of hardware and software.

• Results measure the performance of aspects such as the OS, software, network speed, CPU speed.

• There are several Web benchmarking programs.•Anyone considering buying a server for a heavy

traffic situation or wanting to make changes toan existing system should consider benchmarks.

Benchmarking

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Electronic commerce

• An Web server handles Web pages whereas an e-commerce server deals with the buying andselling of goods and services.

• A Web server should handle e-commerce softwaresince this simplifies adding e-commerce featuresto existing sites.

• Features: Creation of graphics, product information,addition of new products, shopping carts, credit card processing, sales report generation.

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Web server software

• Three of the most popular Web server programs:– Apache HTTP Server– Microsoft Internet Information Server– Netscape Enterprise Server

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Apache HTTP Server

• Developed by Rob McCool while at UI in theNCSA in 1994.

• The software is available free of charge and isquite efficient.

• Can be used for intranets and public Web sites.• Originally written for Unix, it is now available

for many operating systems.

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Microsoft IIS

• Microsoft’s Internet Information Server comesbundled with Microsoft’s Windows NT/2000.

• Can be used for intranets and public Web sites.• It is suitable for everything from small sites to

large enterprise-class sites with high volumes.

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Netscape Enterprise Server

• Costs several thousand dollars and has a 60-daytrial period.

• Can be run on the Internet, intranets and extranets.• Some of the busiest sites on the Internet use NES

including E*Trade, Excite, and Lycos.• Runs on many different operating systems.