Principles

Internet, the web, rely on client-server architecture. this architecture means that a server offers web services such as web page, video, music, ..., to one or several clients. The advantage of client-server architecture is that several users located in several places with heterogenous software and hardware could communicate and use common resources to collaborate and cooperate.

Client-server architecture relies on the separation between server applications and client applications. The server hosts heavy infrastructure of application, those which generates all services. Client hosts only browsing materials of the graphical interface generated by the server, usually a web browser, a mail client, ...


Image:client-server-EN.jpg

Web server architecture relies basically on the following principle:

  • An operating system that manage hardware resources (the computer) and offers services to high level applications.
  • A web server application and a database server application that use operating system services and offers services to high level applications.
  • A web application that use web server and database server to generate dynamically web site contents.
Image:web-server-archi-EN.jpg


Documentation

OSI Model, Wikipedia EN: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OSI_model

Web server, Wikipedia EN: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_server

Apache HTTP Server, Wikipedia EN: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_HTTP_Server

Modèle OSI, Wikipedia FR: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Systems_Interconnect

Serveur Web, Wikipedia FR: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serveur_web

Serveur HTTP, Wikipedia FR: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serveur_HTTP

Serveur Apache HTTP, Wikipedia FR: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_HTTP_Server

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