Web server; What is it, what is it for and how does it work? Server types

The digital age makes, without a doubt, users need more and more technological resources. We use technology for everything and we live connected to the network. Thus, the web server is a resource that we ask for help at all times and that we don’t even know is there. Do you want to know what we are talking about?

A server It is a computer element designed to serve the user who connects and who wishes to receive certain information. in response to a request made. There are them for all uses and of all sizes, although that is their essence.

However, explaining only this may have left you wanting to know much more. We encourage you to continue reading to know exactly what a server iswhat are the types that exist (which will allow you to know which ones you use and how) and which are the companies that control the supply of server services throughout the world.

What is a web server? Definition

A server is a set of software and hardware elements which, as their name indicates, are made available or serviced by other computers.

What it does, essentially, is pay attention to the queries made by the computers (clients) it serves, looking for information and giving a satisfactory answer on demand. This is the general operation although, of course, we find many types of servers, which, following this directive, will have some or other resources.

They work following the model known as “client-server”which is just the formal way of saying that there is a client making a request and a server providing information in response.

This supposes, of course, that have to be in constant operationbecause the demands do not have hours, they are made at all times from anywhere in the world, with millions of queries per second being made and those that, if a server is turned off or fails, would remain unanswered. Servers stay in standby modeso that they are always available to respond immediatelythe consultation of any client.

Top 10 Web Servers

Next we show you a list with the 10 best-selling Web Servers of the moment so you can choose the one that best suits your needs.

What are the main functions of a Web server?

The main function of the server is the one we have indicated, study a request and give you an answer. Since this concept refers to both hardware and software, we may well know the functions of both.

• The hardware server (host) is the physical equipmentpart of a network, supports the server software as well as the operating system and other elements that may be necessary for the complex to function according to the services it offers.
• The software serveron the other hand, is a program to which customers will have access locally or on the network, that is, the service offered or the way to access it.

Types of web servers

We have already seen that much of what this concept entails is going to be given by the type of resource, because, although their working method is the same, the products and services they offer are very diverse.

We have to say that the same computer can contain servers of different types although, for convenience and simplicity, it is usual to separate them.

In any case, let’s see how they are classified according to use, the role they play and their size:

by use

The main classification of this resource is given in relation to the use that is offered to us. Based on this element, we find servers of the types:

• . They resolve the conversion of domain names to IP addresses and vice versa, in such a way that a response can be offered to the user who makes this query, achieving access to the sites they request.
• proxy. It is an intermediary that offers its IP address so that the user can make queries anonymously, without exposing their information. However, they have several other functions such as keeping track of bandwidth, filtering communications, sharing loads to offer more available resources at the same time, storing data in cache…
• of use. It takes care of the logical part of the computing that any client needs, accepting solutions and offering answers that go to a workstation where the logic of the presentation is made.
• Web. Its function is the organization and storage of web pages as well as their delivery in response to customer inquiries. Its communication is based on HTTP and HTTPS with the transmission, in general, of documents in HTML.
• of files. It is responsible for the storage and distribution of all types of files that a group of clients, belonging to the same network, consult, so that they obtain identical responses and remote access to said network. information.
• Of games. They are specially designed to enable the synchronous interaction of online players. They manage all the data referring to the information of each game as well as that which users create as they participate.
• Database. It has no mystery. It serves as an immense store of diverse databases to which clients of all kinds can have access through software on the network. Among these solutions, the most used, by far, are Oracle and MySQL, followed by DB2 and Microsoft SQL Server.
• Backup. As its name indicates, it is a “just in case”, a reserve of available space to save what can be lost from any server.
• Of security. Its services are based on the use of specialized software for malware detection and retention.
• from email. It works with modules that interact with each other in order to send and receive emails. Of course, everything necessary for these processes to be carried out is also fine-tuned and, finally, the messages, their attachments and their senders and recipients are stored. The protocols that these use are SMTP, IMAP and POP.
• facsimile. It does the same with faxes.
• telephony. It performs all kinds of functions related to this resource, such as voice response, answering machine, network control, message storage, call routing…
• In real time. They maintain and manage spaces intended for the exchange of information instantly (chat type).
• groupware. They are designed in such a way that they can facilitate group work carried out by a group of computers with the same objective.
• telnet. Specialized in allowing the user to log into a device to control another, that is, to work remotely on a computer.
• Cloud. They offer a service that is carried out in their facilities, so that the user does not require storage space or need to install operating systems or software. Whatever comes to mind, you do it “in the cloud”.

By role

Considering the role they have, we would find servers:

• dedicated. The total power is dedicated to the services offered to customers, managing the various network resources involved in it.
• Not dedicated (shared). Only part of its power goes to the customer. The rest is used in workstations, being able to respond, for example, to requests from local users.

by size

This classification does not have much mystery, because it allows us, simply, to know the types of servers that we can find according to their size, although this is information that does not mean anything for the user who is going to make use of any of them, well, contracting an X service, the rest of the server has no influence on us.

In any case, we find the following, the first three being by far the best known and used:

• Rack. The hardware, electronic type, is embedded in a frame of less than 50 cm.
• Tower. Similar to a desktop computer, they are tower-shaped, closed.
• Blade. It is very dense, designed to make the most of the space. They already increase their size and, with it, their capacities.
• Mobiles.
• miniature.
• cluster.
• Ultradense.
• superservers.

Alternatives to the conventional server: the “cloud servers” or hosting in the cloud

A cloud server It is any of the ones we have just mentioned, with the particularity that its tool remains in the virtual world, meaning that the client does not have to consume resources.

To make this happen, the different providers work with a large physical infrastructure where they have hardware-servers, which are controlled with software, thus virtualizing a platform in which the different services offered are found.

In other words, you you contract a service so that, in another place, what you do is saved. In this way, a company (or yourself), has access to a custom server capable of meeting particular needs, with scalable resourcesthat is, they can increase as they are needed.

These resources are comfortable, easily accessible (through a login from the device you want), very safe, highly professional and, without a doubt, quite cheap considering the wonders they come to offer.

Some clear examples would be Drive, the Google suiteeither drop boxthe famous storage service for all kinds of data that we can access via the web.

How can we use server hosting for our own website?

Having a website means owning a lot of information, more every minute that passes, in fact. For that reason, thinking about hosting all that data on a server is something we all end up doing.

It goes without saying that we ourselves could set up our own server on our computer, in fact, we can even do it on our smartphone. However, what we are going to be referring to in this section is the fact of hosting said information on third-party servers.

If you have read the rest of the post, you will have verified that a web page, in addition to the obvious web server service, you can make use of others depending on the information you handlealthough opting for each of them separately is quite cumbersome and it is usual to contract a combined service with which you can carry out all the necessary actions to work with the information on your website and keep it hosted at the same time.

In any case, There are several types of servers dedicated to web hosting and, depending on each one, the way they are used will change.

Here we detail the most used:

VPS

This is hosted on a physical machine that is partitioned into multiple virtual machineseach one being a VPS server (Virtual PrivateServer). In this way, it gives the feeling of having a single server.

Hiring this service guarantees an amount of processing, RAM memory, hard disk, etc. specific and that you will use only you and that is obviously part of a much larger pool of resources. That is, the physical machine has X resources and, when dividing it, these are also divided, corresponding to each contracting party, one of those parts.

To use this type you need some client to connect to the remote server. This client depends on the operating system you have chosen at the time of contraction. It can be from theWindows remote desktop” to an SSH client like Putty.

On these servers, we are responsible for its use. We can use it for FTP, Web, DNS, etc, but we will be the ones responsible for installing and managing these services. The server provider only guarantees you the access and resources of the VPS, that is, it only provides the canvas and you customize it by choosing what the color of the temperas would be and applying them, to maintain the simile.

shared server

As above, in this case a single machine shares its resources between the different websites you host in it, but without guaranteeing at all times the total of the available resources since these are distributed according to the demand that exists at the moment.

This means that the machine shares all its resources with the different clients, without sharing of these, so that if a user uses many, it is possible that you have few. Obviously, this makes it a cheaper service than in the previous case.

These are recommended for people who have no knowledge computer savvy or don’t want to waste time configuring the server. At the time of registration, it can already be used as a web server, being previously configured.

In this case, you are given the canvas and temperas of specific colors are placed in the center of the table; you take the ones you want when you want and the rest do the same. To access and upload the website an SFTP or FTP client is required, such as Filezilla.

Dedicated server

The concept is the same as in the case of the VPS server, with the exception that the machine is not partitioned into virtual drives to rent each one but you will have all of it alone. That is, as its name suggests, this server is dedicated to you, you have one hundred percent of its resources.

This means that, unlike in the previous case, we speak of a much more expensive service Well, we are talking about one machine per customer.

cloud server

It is very similar to VPS, except that instead of dividing a physical machine into several virtual machines, The virtual machine is spread over several physical servers..

This guarantees greater consistency, so that if a physical server fails or has an increase in traffic, it will not affect its proper functioning. In addition, we find everything that we have already explained in the section on hosting in the cloud.

aws

It is a collection of services provided by Amazon and that they work, unlike the rest, on demand. This means that, Depending on the use of the resources that you have contracted with them, the economic cost varies.

One of the services that we find in AWS is the one for web hosting, although there are many more, as many as you can imagine. And it is normal, since Amazon is considered the largest server service provider in the world.

The way we have to connect and manage the services is through the AWS Amplify Console that Amazon itself provides, preconfigured and, if desired, with the option to fully customize your space and resources.

What are the best and most popular server brands in the world?

Obviously, and as with any product and service on the market, there is enormous competition that means that we have hundreds of options for hiring a web server.

For this reason, it is common to search for information related to the companies that provide the best server services. In this regard, we want to inform you of the following.

IBM

It has always been at the forefront of computing, pioneering the launch of all kinds of products during the second half of the last century. Currently its most outstanding product, in fact, is the server, having immersed itself in hosting in an exceptional way.

With IBM you have:

• small business servers. Quite cheap and with good performance for SMEs.
• Servers for large companies. Solutions for very high needs, typical of multinationals and other large corporations.
• Scalable servers. They are powerful at first but can be increased as the client’s need varies.
• Mainframe. Its services offer support to different emerging technologies such as blockchain or machine learning.

They have, for these services, such world-renowned parts as IBM LinuxONE Emperor II, IBM Z, IBM Power Systems and scale-out and accelerated servers.

HPE

It is a division of HP created specifically to offer specialized products and services to companies. Its presence in the server sector is very high today.

The solutions that HPE makes available to companies are:

• tower servers. We are talking about classic dedicated servers, the tower ones.
• Rack serves. Classic servers used in datacenter racks.
• Blade serves. These teams include centralized management.
• hyper-converged system. Solutions focused on working on the Internet of Things.
• cloud servers. They are services that do hybrid and private hosting in the cloud.

HPE’s featured servers are the ProLiant DL Gen10, the Integrity MC990 X, the Integrity rx2800 i6, or the Apollo k6000 Chassis.

Dell

One of the oldest brands in this regard and currently on the podium in most submarkets of the type. They are the most robust and with the best quality.

Your servers and related services go through tower and rack servers, data center infrastructure, system management software and modular infrastructure. Dell rack servers that stand out the most are R240, R340 and PowerEdge R7415.

SuperMicro

Less long-lived but also very competitive in terms of server hardware for offering an excellent quality/price ratio.

They work both with servers (and software to manage them) and with networks, workstations, apps for managing data centers and storage systems.

The highlights of SuperMicro are the services:

• micro blade. They work with up to 280 Intel Xeon type microprocessors in each rack.
• multiprocessor. It is compatible with the latest Intel Xeon processors, being one of the few that can offer this type of service.
• SuperStorage. They offer massive storage in various ways, which makes this service ideal for those who opt for cloud hosting.

Its most famous solutions regarding the topic that concerns us today are: MultiProcessor SYS-2049U-TR4, SYS-7089P-TR4T and SYS-7088B-TR4FT, Blade servers MBI-6119M-C2, Blade MBI-6119M-T2N, Blade MBI- 6119G-T8HX and superStorages SSG-6049P-E1CR45L+, SSG-6049P-E1CR45H and SSG-6049P-E1CR45L.

lenovo

Better known for its laptops and peripherals, Lenovo has also managed to get its head into the server market, offering services to vendors who act as intermediaries, not dealing directly with the end user.

Its related services are:

• Rack. They are used to mount to your Lenovo rack for performance and power.
• Tower. We have them for all budgets and they present compatibility with both System X and ThinkSystem.
• Blade. They make the integration of Blade Flex systems seamless in the enterprise environment.
• mission critical. They are more capable and perform better when mounted in high-end racks.
• high density. Various solutions would be included here, in HPC systems, NeXtScale and iDataPlex & clusters.

The server models that stand out from this brand are ThinkSystem ST50, ST250, ST550, SD650 and SD530 and Lenovo Tower Server TS150.

Intel

The processor brand par excellence has been so successful in the technology market that it has been able to invest heavily to expand into other subsectors, such as the one we are dealing with today.

The products that interest us in this case focus on:

• Data Center Blocks. It is a set of servers specialized in supporting datacenters.
• Chassis and Server Hardware. They have all kinds of rack chassis with the latest hardware elements on the market.

Its star servers are the Chassis Family R1000WF, R2000WF, R100WT, R2000WT, H2000G and the Board Based System S2600WF and S2600WT.

Oracle

Although they are specialized in databases, the equipment for data centers is also part of their proposals, thereby earning them a position at the top in terms of cloud services.

For servers, they offer equipment with these two services:

• SPARC. We are talking about high-security equipment in the cloud, scalable and with speed as a flag.
• Oracle x86. Its standard equipment that, updated, they work for cloud computing.

The server models that stand out are the Server X7-8, X7-2 and X7-2L as well as the SPARC M7-8, M7-16 and M8-8.

Cisco

Cisco is a world leader in computing TELECO, offering unbeatable support and quality that is increasing with each passing day thanks to its strong investment in research. Thus, it has not cost him any work to also stand out in this sector, offering:

• UCS-C Series Rackmount. Its price is very adequate considering that they offer a perfect balance between speed, storage and power.
• Unified Blade Computing. They are scalable and used to perform in the cloud.

Its most prominent Blade servers are B200 M4, B260 M4, B200 M5, B480 M5. Those that work in rack are the C125 and the C220.

huawei

Although in Spain they are known for their mobile phones, the truth is that for several years Huawei has been offering very good solutions in terms of servers as well as in data centers and the Big Data universe.

In relation to the servers, we find:

• Fusion Server Rack. The solution par excellence, that few offer, for the use of space in data centers. They are very balanced solutions in terms of price and performance and can be used in the cloud.
• FusionServer E Series Blade. It is oriented towards virtualization environments as well as database processing.
• FusionServer X Series High-Density. These are their scalable servers, a service designed for high performance but which, as you can imagine, any user can adapt to their project.

Its models to highlight would be FusionServer 1288H V5, 2288 V5, 2288H V5, X6000 and XH321L V5.