Web Servers

and the

Apache HTTP
Server

By Zubin Khavarian
 What is a Web Server ?

A Web Server is a software program

running on a server machine which is
used to provide web services to client
machines by using a request-
response mechanism.
Serving Static Content
Serving Dynamic Content
Dynamic Web pages can be defined as:

(1) Web pages containing dynamic content:

Available Languages & Technologies:

•Dynamic HTML or DHTML
•Client-side languages like JavaScript

This is called thickening the client tier to put more work on the
browser, instead of the server.

They process data independently of the web server or preprocess

data before sending it to the server.
(This helps in less load on the server and quicker response.)
Dynamic Web pages can be defined as:

(2) Web pages that are produced on-the-fly by server-side programs:

Available Languages & Technologies:

•PHP
•Perl
•ASP/.NET/C#/VB.NET (by Microsoft)
•JSP (by Sun Microsystems)
•ColdFusion (by Adobe)
 Different Web Server Products - 1
Free (Open Source) Web Servers
•Apache
•Boa
•Red Hat Content Accelerator
•thttpd
•Mathopd

(The Netcraft Web Server Survey as of November 2005, found

that more than 70% of the Web sites on the Internet are using
Apache.)

Reasons for its popularity:

•Speed
•Portability
•Stability
•Security
 Different Web Server Products - 2
Proprietary Web Servers
•Internet Information Services (IIS) - (by Microsoft)
•Zeus Web Server - (by Zeus Technology)
•Sun Java System Web Server
(Sun ONE, iPlanet, Netscape Enterprise Server)
•Stronghold
 Apache Facts - 1

•Latest Release - Version 2.2.3 / July 28,

2006

•Where the name Apache comes from?

The most widespread interpretation is that the name
comes from the fact that when it was developed in early
1995, the web server consisted a set of patches to the
codebase of NCSA HTTPd 1.3 and was therefore "a
patchy" server.
 Apache Facts - 2

Developed by:
The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) is a non-
profit corporation to support Apache software projects,
including the Apache HTTP Server.

The ASF has a membership of 151 members and

approximately 1000 committers as of 2005.
 Apache’s Features

• Freely Distributable
• Ease of Installation
• Ease of Configuration
• High Performance and Low Resource
Consumption
• Open Source
• Customizable Design
• Security
• Support for HTTP /1.1
• Language Support
• Proxy Caching
• Dynamic Shared Objects
• Support for Windows
• Scalability
• Portability
Thank You !!

Any Questions?