Architectural Issues of Web Layer: "The Web Is Really A System of Systems."

Architectural Issues of Web Layer
“The Web is really a system of systems.”
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-The Web is basicaly a client-server system.
The Client Side
-The client side of web layer consists of the web browser.
-The web browser is an application that presents a user interface for
requesting and viewing web documents.
-Some of the popular browsers are Microsoft Internet Explorer,
Netscape Navigator, Netscape Communicator, Mozilla, Neoplanet.
-The browser fetches the page requested, interprets the text and
formatting commands (tags) and displays the page, properly
formatted, on the screen.
-There are also some nongraphical browser such as Lynx.
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The Client Side
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The Server Side
-The server side of web layer consists of the web server.
-The web server is a software application that executes on a
computer connected to the Internet and offers a service to other
computers on the Internet.
-The purpose of a web server is to receive requests for information
from web browsers, and to send, via the internet, the requested
documents.
-Web server process listens to TCP port 80 for incoming
connections from cients (browsers).
-Some common web servers are Apache, PWS and IIS.
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The Server Side
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Universal Resource Locator (URL) / Universal Resource
Indicator (URI)
-The URL is a single, universal address mechanism that denotes an
information service or document type, the location of the hosting
server within the Internet, and the location of that information
within the host.
-URLs have three parts: the protocol, the DNS name of the
machine on which the page is located, and a local name uniquely
indicating the specific page.
E.g. http://www.kcc.edu.np/index.asp
Here, protocol is http, DNS name is www.kcc.edu.np and the file
name index.asp.
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HTTP – HyperText Transfer Protocol
- HTTP is the standard Web transfer protocol.
- The HTTP is the language that Web clients and Web servers use
to communicate with each other.
- The common protocol used by HTTP at transport layer is TCP
which is not formally required by the standard.
- It is constantly evolving protocol with several version in use and
others are still under development.
- This protocol has two items: the set of requests from browsers
to servers and the set of responses going back the other way.
- It is a stateless protocol and does not maintain any information
from one transaction to the next, so the next transaction needs to
start all over again
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- The advantage is that an HTTP server can serve a lot more clients in a
given period of time, since there's no additional overhead for tracking
sessions from one connection to the next.
HTTP Transactions
All HTTP transactions follow the same general format. Each client
request and server response has three parts: the request or response
line, a header section, and the entity body. The client initiates a
transaction as follows:
- The client contacts the server at a designated port number (by default,
80). Then it sends a document request by specifying an HTTP
command called a method, followed by a document address, and an
HTTP version number. For example:
GET /index.html HTTP/1.0
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– Next, the client sends optional header information to inform the
server of its configuration and the document formats it will accept.
For example:
User-Agent: Mozilla/2.02Gold (WinNT; I)
Accept: image/gif, image/x-xbitmap, image/jpeg, image/pjpeg,
*/*
– After sending the request and headers, the client may send
additional data. This data is mostly used by CGI programs using
the POST method.
The server responds in the following way to the client's request:
– The server replies with a status line containing three fields: HTTP
version, status code, and description. For example:
HTTP/1.0 200 OK
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– After the status line, the server sends header information to the
client about itself and the requested document. For example:
Date: Fri, 20 Sep 1996 08:17:58 GMT
Server: NCSA/1.5.2
Last-modified: Mon, 17 Jun 1996 21:53:08 GMT
Content-type: text/html
Content-length: 2482
– If the client's request is successful, the requested data is sent.

HTTP Request Methods
The HTTP request Methods can be listed as:
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The built-in HTTP request methods.
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FTP – File Transfer Protocol
•File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a method of transferring files from
a client to a server or vice versa.
•Files are transferred over the Internet using TCP/IP protocol.
•FTP (RFC 959) is old-time protocol that maintains two

simultaneous connections.
• The first connection uses the telnet remote login protocol to log
the client into an account and process commands via the protocol
interpreter.
•The second connection is used for the data transfer process.
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• Whereas the first connection is maintained throughout the FTP

session, the second connection is opened and closed for each file
transfer.
•The FTP protocol also enables an FTP client to establish

connections with two servers and to act as the third-party agent in
transferring files between the two servers.
•FTP servers rarely change, but new FTP clients appear on a regular
basis.
•These clients vary widely in the number of FTP commands they

implement.
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•Very few clients implement the third-party transfer feature, and

most of the PC clients implement only a small subset of the FTP
commands.
•Although FTP is a command-line oriented protocol, the new
generation of FTP clients hides this orientation under a GUI
environment.
•FTP uses TCP port 21.
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Architectural Issues of Web Layer

“The Web is really a system of systems.”

– If the client's request is successful, the requested data is sent.

The built-in HTTP request methods.

•Files are transferred over the Internet using TCP/IP protocol.

•FTP (RFC 959) is old-time protocol that maintains two

•The second connection is used for the data transfer process.

• Whereas the first connection is maintained throughout the FTP

•The FTP protocol also enables an FTP client to establish

•These clients vary widely in the number of FTP commands they

•Very few clients implement the third-party transfer feature, and

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