From the course: Introduction to Web Design and Development

Understanding clients and servers

From the course: Introduction to Web Design and Development

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Understanding clients and servers

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- Two words that appear often in the web design, and development space are clients and servers. Let's start with servers. This is a word referring to either software or hardware that serves files or websites to computers which request them. Sometimes, the server software runs on the server hardware, and sometimes the server software is located elsewhere. It's very confusing. So let's clarify. You may also have heard of someone talking about the server room. It's an over air conditioned space with scores of computers on racks, wires everywhere, and some poor server maintenance person staying warm in a hoodie, keeping it all running. In this case, this is the server as hardware, a very powerful computer that's designed to handle many simultaneous connections, and serve up files as requested. But what causes those files to be served up? That's the server software that executes those commands. There are different types of server software like database servers, cloud computing servers, file servers and web server software. Web server software is what we are interested in, and there's several makers of this software. Some of it is free and open-source like Apache or NGINX. Some are proprietary from big companies like Oracle, Microsoft and IBM. When web server software runs on web server hardware, and that system is maintained by a company who will sell you some space on it that is referred to as a web host or hosting. When you build websites, you'll only to get a web host, and we'll talk more about that in a later segment. Now let's move on to clients. You may think of a client as the person who hires you to do some type of job. That's true, but it's not what we mean here. A client is the device that talks to the web server to get web pages to display. On a typical Mac or PC computer, the client is the web browser like Firefox, Chrome, Safari or Edge. Your phone or tablet may have different choices for web browsers, but they still function the same way. The client does not have to be a typical web browser. For example, if you've used Netflix, Hulu, Disney+ or similar services on your TV, you're working with a client as well. These clients connect to the appropriate server to send you TV shows and movies on-demand. Regardless of what the client is, it's job is to request materials from the server, and display them on the client's screen. You enter a web address in the browser or you choose a movie on the application. That request is sent over the internet to the appropriate server. The server gathers codes, images, video, audio or whatever else is needed to render the display, and it sends it all back to the client computer. The client receives those assets, and follows the code to assemble the pieces appropriately to fill your request. Remember, the web client is the device in front of you, which runs some type of software that allows you to connect to a desired web server. The web server will send you the pages you request. It all happens in the blink of an eye.

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