The Internet Versus the Web | How the Web Works ?
No, it’s not a battle to the death, just an opportunity to point out the distinction
between these two words that are increasingly being used interchangeably.
The Internet is a network of connected computers. No company owns the
Internet; it is a cooperative effort governed by a system of standards and
rules. The purpose of connecting computers together, of course, is to share
information. There are many ways information can be passed between
computers, including email, file transfer (FTP), and many more specialized
modes upon which the Internet is built. These standardized methods for
transferring data or documents over a network are known as protocols.
The Web (originally called the World Wide Web, thus the “www” in
site addresses) is just one of the ways information can be shared over the
Internet. It is unique in that it allows documents to be linked to one another
using hypertext links—thus forming a huge “web” of connected information.
The Web uses a protocol called HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol).
That acronym should look familiar because it is the first four letters of nearly
all website addresses, as we’ll discuss in an upcoming section.
Serving Up Your Information
Let’s talk more about the computers that make up the Internet. Because they
“serve up” documents upon request, these computers are known as servers.
More accurately, the server is the software (not the computer itself) that
allows the computer to communicate with other computers; however, it is
common to use the word “server” to refer to the computer as well. The role
of server software is to wait for a request for information, then retrieve and
send that information back as quickly as possible.
There’s nothing special about the computers themselves…picture anything
from a high-powered Unix machine to a humble personal computer. It’s the
server software that makes it all happen. In order for a computer to be part
of the Web, it must be running special web server software that allows it to
handle Hypertext Transfer Protocol transactions. Web servers are also called
“HTTP servers.”
There are many server software options out there, but the two most popular
are Apache (open source software) and Microsoft Internet Information
Services (IIS). Apache is freely available for Unix-based computers and
comes installed on Macs running Mac OS X. There is a Windows version as
well. Microsoft IIS is part of Microsoft’s family of server solutions.