Hardware & software

Web Server

Proxy Server

Mail Server

Router

Web servers are computers that deliver web pages. Every web server had an IP address. Computers recognize IP addresses and send emails to any given IP address. A web server is a computer system with a good hardware specification which is used to run a web server application. The web server receives HTTP (hypertext transfer protocol) requests for web pages and other files such as images and sounds and then transmits them back to the client computer which has asked for them. Web servers should be protected by Firewalls and antivirus software. Also can be handled access by multiple users.

A Mail Server hold emails and is used to describe the hardware which receives incoming mail from users also sends it out to the person they want to send it to, you are able to send images, audio, videos and mostly every document available. It uses Software also called a mail server to do this such as Hotmail.com or Google mail etc. This also should be protected by Firewalls and antivirus software.

A Proxy Server is a go between, that blocks websites which are not suitable in a working environment such as school or a workplace, it blocks inappropriate website so users cannot access them, it’s also used for parenting your children blocking social networking site for young children.  The Proxy can decide to either change or ignore the request or quickly server a recently saved version of the requested web page rather than contacting the remote server for a fresh copy.

A Router is a complex networking device, making decisions about which of the several possible paths should be used to relay network data between the servers and the client computer systems. Web pages move between different routers in their journey from web server to web browser. Routers are part of the internet.

 

How the Internet Works

The Internet is not a bubble cloud, it is a wire buried in the ground it may be fibre optics, copper or occasionally beamed to satellites. The internet is useful because two computers connected to the internet can communicate, a sever is a computer directly connected to the internet, and web pages are files saved on that servers hard drive. Every server has a unique IP address that helps other computers find each other, IP addresses are a code of numbers such as 119.993.999.222. Computers you have at home are known as client computers because they are not directly connected to the internet they are connected to an Internet Service Provider (ISP). After being connected to the ISP you can then go to a website such as AOL.com which is an server and a ISP

Software

A Browser must be on a computer for a person to access the internet.  Browsers render HTML into a web page when the HTML is sent to the computer from the web server. Browsers use the HTTP protocol, an example of a few browsers would be Firefox, Mozilla, and Chrome etc…

There will be web server application software on the web server that finds and sends out requested web pages. Example is Apache

There is also software on the mail server that allows users to store and retrieve emails – Yahoo, Hotmail etc