Web Technologies - Old Questions

4.  What is client/server technology? Discuss Internet as a client/server technology.

Client-server is a computer model that separates client and server, and usually interlinked using a computer network. Each instance of a client can send data requests to one of the servers online and expect a response. In turn, some of the available servers can accept these requests, process them and return the result to the client. Often clients and servers communicate through a computer network with separate hardware, but the client and server can reside on the same system. The machine is a host server that is running one or more server programs that share their resources with clients. A client does not share its resources, but requests content from a server or service function. Clients, therefore, initiate communication sessions with the servers that wait for incoming requests.

Internet is a client/server technology because most services that are accessed via the Internet work on the client/server model. In that, we have a server which provides a service, while clients connect to the server to make requests regarding the service. A web site is an example: a web server holds the contents of the web site. Our web browser is a client, which we can use to connect to web servers to ask them for information, or to perform services on our behalf.