Imagine you're outside your home and don't have your phone or laptop with you. Suddenly, you want to send a message to someone close to you because of some urgency. You notice your friend has a laptop with them. What would you do?
You would likely log into a messaging site on your friend's laptop and send the message, right? Now, think about this: no matter which device you log into, all of them show the same information, the same interface, and the same history. If you think deeply, this wouldn't be possible without your data being stored somewhere or on another computer.
The device where all this information is stored is called a Web Server.
Web Server
A Web Server is a specialized computer that stores, processes, and delivers website pages to users. Essentially, these servers store information and make it accessible to users upon request.
Some of this information requires authorization and authentication, such as logging into a site to access personal data, while other information is available to the public.
Here’s how it works: when you enter a website link (URL) like instagram.com, the request is handled by the DNS server, which provides you with the IP address of the server where Instagram’s information is stored. The request is then made to that server using the returned IP address, and you’re shown the login page interface. After you enter your login details, another request is sent to the web server for verification. If everything is correct, you are served with your homepage, and you can access your account.
Think of it like a restaurant kitchen: The waiter (browser) takes an order from the customer (you), relays it to the kitchen (the server), and the kitchen prepares the meal (processes the request) before handing it back to the waiter to serve to the customer. Similarly, the web server processes requests from browsers and delivers the appropriate content to users.
These interactions are made possible by HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol), which defines the rules for transmitting messages. The URL or endpoint where the request is made in the server is often called an API (Application Programming Interface).
Web hosting software like Apache and Nginx ease this task of serving your website over the internet audience and also manage high traffic
Servers don’t have displays or keyboards because they are designed to handle specific tasks like processing requests and delivering data. This allows them to focus on performance and reliability, with management typically done remotely rather than through direct user interaction.
Web Hosting
You might be wondering, "If a server is just a computer on the internet that stores information, can’t I just use my own computer as a web server?"
Well, yes, you can. But because anyone on the internet can make requests to your server at any time, you’d need to ensure your computer is always active and ready to provide information 24/7. Plus, factors like scalability come into play. These are the reasons why most people don’t use their own computers as web servers. This is where web hosting services come in.
Web hosting means providing storage for websites on a server that serves them over the internet. Since it’s not feasible for most people to keep their own computers running 24/7, web hosting services provide this infrastructure for a fee. These companies allocate space on their servers to store your website’s files, ensuring they are accessible to internet users at all times.
Some types of Web hosting
Shared Hosting: Providing single server to store information for multiple websites. Usually these types of hosting are comparatively cheap and suitable for small websites. However this hosting provide limited resources and site performance may impact when high traffic visits.
Virtual Private Server (VPS) : A single server is divided into multiple virtual servers, each acting as an independent server. VPS offers more resources and control than the shared hosting.
Dedicated Hosting : Dedicated Hosting refers to one server per website meaning an entire server is dedicated to managing a single website. This provides maximum control, performance and security suitable for large website with high traffic.
Conclusion
To summarize, Web server is a specialized computer providing the information of your site over on the internet while web Hosting is the process of storing these information on the allocated space over the sever.
Understanding the role of web server and web hosting is crucial while learning and knowing about the web in general. Also this helps in selecting the appropriate web hosting for ensuring performant and accessible presence of your website over the internet.
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