Web Server Hardware and Software

By:- Vikram.G.BLecturer, P.G Dept. of Commerce

V.D.C Bangalore-55

What is WEB SERVER???????

Server refers to a computer or device on a network that manages network resources. There are many different types of servers.  For example:◦ File server: a computer and storage

device dedicated to storing files. Any user on the network can store files on the server.

◦ Print server: a computer that manages one or more printers, and a network server is a computer that manages network traffic.

◦ Database server: a computer system that processes database queries.

Web server can refer to either the hardware (the computer) or the software (the computer application) that helps to deliver web content that can be accessed through the Internet.

Web servers are computers that deliver Web pages. Every Web server has an IP address and possibly a domain name.

For example, if you enter the URL http://www.pcwebopedia.com/index.html in your browser, this sends a request to the Web server whose domain name is pcwebopedia.com. The server then fetches the page named index.html and sends it to your browser.

What is required for a Web Server???Any computer can be turned into a Web

server by installing server software and connecting the machine to the Internet.

There are many Web server software applications, including public domain software from NCSA and Apache, and commercial packages from Microsoft, Netscape and others.

Software for Web servers. Computer software, or just software, is any set

of machine-readable instructions (most often in the form of a computer program) that directs a computer's processor to perform specific operations.

Software is a general term. It can refer to all computer instructions in general or to any specific set of computer instructions. It is inclusive of both machine instructions (the binary code that the processor understands) and source code (more human-understandable instructions that must be rendered into machine code by compilers or interpreters before being executed).

Web server software....

Web server software includes a series of complex tools and programs that come together to create and manage a Web server. These tools range from programming language protocols to file transfer protocol programs, which allow programmers to customize their Web servers and provide unique experiences for their users from each of their Web pages.

Web server software is used to edit and create Web pages along with various other HTTP formatted files.

Few famous web server software

Percentage of Websites using various web sites.

Apache 62.3% Microsoft-IIS 16.6%

Nginx 15.7% LiteSpeed1.9%Google Servers1.4% Tomcat 0.7%Lighttpd 0.5% IBM Servers

0.4%Yahoo Traffic Server 0.2% Oracle Servers 0.2% Zope 0.1%Resin0.1% Zeus0.1%

Apache HTTP Server:-

Often referred to as simply Apache, a public-domain open source Web server developed by a loosely-knit group of programmers. The first version of Apache, based on the NCSA httpd Web server, was developed in 1995.

Core development of the Apache Web server is performed by a group of about 20 volunteer programmers, called the Apache Group. However, because the source code is freely available, anyone can adapt the server for specific needs, and there is a large public library of Apache add-ons. In many respects, development of Apache is similar to development of the Linux operating system.

The original version of Apache was written for UNIX, but there are now versions that run under OS/2, Windows and other platforms.

The name is a tribute to the Native American Apache Indian tribe, a tribe well known for its endurance and skill in warfare. A common misunderstanding is that it was called Apache because it was developed from existing NCSA code plus various patches, hence the name a patchy server, or Apache server.

Popular sites using Apache◦Youtube.com◦Baidu.com◦Wikipedia.org◦Weibo.com◦Tumblr.com◦Mail.ru◦Fc2.com◦Ask.com◦Apple.com◦Craigslist.org

Microsoft-IIS Short

for Internet Information Server, Microsoft's Web server that runs on Windows NT platforms. In fact, IIS comes bundled with Windows NT 4.0. Because IIS is tightly integrated with the operating system, it is relatively easy to administer.

However, currently IIS is available only for the Windows NT platform, whereas Netscape's Web servers run on all major platforms, including Windows NT, OS/2 and UNIX.

Popular sites using Microsoft-IIS◦Live.com◦Msn.com◦Microsoft.com◦Conduit.com◦Go.com◦360buy.com◦Incredibar.com◦Godaddy.com◦Blogfa.com◦Secureserver.net

Nginx:- Nginx (pronounced engine-x) is a free,

open-source, high-performance HTTP server and reverse proxy, as well as an IMAP/POP3 proxy server. Igor Sysoev started development of Nginx in 2002, with the first public release in 2004.

Nginx now hosts nearly12.18% of active sites across all domains. Nginx is known for its high performance, stability, rich feature set, simple configuration, and low resource consumption.

Nginx is one of a handful of servers written to address the C10K problem. Unlike traditional servers, Nginx doesn't rely on threads to handle requests. Instead it uses a much more scalable event-driven (asynchronous) architecture. This architecture uses small, but more importantly, predictable amounts of memory under load.

Popular sites using Nginx◦Sina.com.cn◦Yandex.ru◦Wordpress.com◦Vk.com◦163.com◦Pinterest.com◦Soso.com◦About.com◦Cnn.com◦Imgur.com

Web Server Hardware

Why does web server hardware matters??Web Traffic

◦It is need to be ensured that HTTP requests are serviced with a minimum response time.

Customers View◦It's considered to be rude if service

provider makes his customers wait, especially on the web.  

General Sense

Measuring web server response time The most important factor to look at is high

water mark of HTTP requests per second and end-to-end response time during high-usage period.

This response time is the total elapsed time between receipt of the request and the end of sending the requested HTML.  (Some use the "Time To First Byte"(TTBF) metric to measure webserver response time). 

For a real measure of end-to-end response time, one can use open  gateway proxy web servers and see how fast pages load from anywhere in the world. 

What is Web Server System??

Companies use a wide variety of computer brands, types, and sizes to host electronic commerce operations. Some small companies can run Web sites on desktop PCs. Most electronic commerce Web sites are operated on computers designed for site hosting,

Web server computers generally have more memory, larger (and faster) hard disk drives, and faster processors than the typical desktop or notebook PCs with which we are probably familiar.

Many Web server computers use multiple processors, very few desktop PCs have more than one processor.

Because Web server computers use more capable hardware elements and more of these elements, they are usually much more expensive than workstation PCs.

Things need to be considered for best webserver configuration:-

Disk placement counts and disk latency.

Web Servers are not CPU intensive.

RAM matters most

Choosing web server hardware configuration

Depending on you tolerance for 404 timeouts and response time during peak usage times, one can choose webserver hardware to minimize disk latency (caching) while ensuring that availability of enough CPU and RAM for the OS. 

Most companies choose Intel-based web server hardware on a server with high-channel disks (to support high volume disk reads) and expandable RAM to cache the most frequently requested pages and images.

One should choose a server that has expandable RAM capacity, at least 4 GB with expansion to 16 GB, depending on the size of working set of frequently-referenced pages and images.

If less than a million page views a month, one can buy powerful 64-bit PC's for webserver hardware, install Red Hat Linux advanced server with Squid and have a 1.5 GB web cache for super-fast web page delivery.  Dell also offers higher volume webservers at reasonable prices.

For larger webserver traffic volumes, many web hosting companies offer larger servers.  . ◦ EX:- Dual Xeon EM64T 3.2GHz with 2GB RAM

and two 200GB SATA drives in a RAID All for only $275.00 a month. The only setback is that the max bandwidth on that is 1TB per month.

If user want even cheaper than that, we got Dual Xeon 2.8GHz EM64T with 2GB RAM and two 80GB SATA RAID-1 drives for only $210 a month.

For cheaper servers, we got non-RAID. There's a dual core Athlon X2 3800 with 1GB RAM and an 80GB hard drive for only $160 a month. User can upgrade the RAM for only a little more.