Your Computer
When it comes to the internet, your computer that you use to access
email and internet services is know as a client. It is capable of connecting
to the internet through an Internet Service Provider (ISP) who would
commonly charge you for accessing the internet based on a usage package.
An ISP also provides you with a set of one or more basic email addresses
which can be used in conjunction with your account.
Typically you require a couple of programs which are included free
with Windows in order to access your Email and the internet. The first
is some kind of email client. Outlook Express is the most commonly used
program. The second is a browser. A browser takes information from a
variety of sources and makes it readable on your computer. The most
commonly used browsers are Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator, and
Opera.
Where Does the Information Come From?
Both your email client and your browser retrieve information by
connecting to the internet through your ISP. This gives you basic access
to online services. The information they retrieve is held on another
computer called a server. (The end user - you - uses a client (Outlook
Express and Internet Explorer) to retrieve and display information from
a server.
There are hundreds of thousands of servers all storing information
all connected together through some means like telephone lines, cable
lines, fibre optic lines, or wireless transmission. This is what is
known as the internet. Throughout the internet there are junction points
called routers. These routers contain all the information on where to
send your request for specific websites. Every website has a unique
identity and address. This address is established when you register a
domain name online. For instance, our address is 24-7webs.com. All the
routers on the internet know how to find this site because it is
associated with a specific set of addresses known as nameservers. These
nameservers identify a specific computer or server which contains all
the information your are viewing on this site.
For example. Here is the route to our site located in USA
from Ontario, Canada.
Trace 24-7webs.com; Start time 02/07/05 11:14:48
Tracing route to 69.93.170.22
50 bytes from 69.93.170.22: time=62 ms
Hop Avg Diff Address
1 12 12 64.230.254.12
2 8 -4 64.230.222.41
3 8 0 64.230.222.17
4 18 10 206.108.103.134
5 19 1 64.230.223.42
6 19 0 206.108.108.182
7 136 117 216.140.15.6
8 20 -116 216.140.14.161
9 23 3 216.140.15.141
10 40 17 216.140.15.105
11 41 1 216.140.5.42
12 46 5 67.99.43.234
13 45 -1 70.85.127.29
14 46 1 70.85.127.67
15 47 1 12.96.160.17
16 47 0 69.93.170.22
End time 02/07/05 11:14:49
host reached
As you can see, in order to access our site from Ontario
Canada, we had to go through 16 different routers. They all knew where
to send our request to find 24-7webs.com.
24-7webs.com information exists on a server along with a number of other sites This server is
known as the host server. It holds our complete web site, so that when
you request information from our website, it is delivered from this
server.
Web hosting is simply a website being stored on a web server.
Web servers can store data and information for hundreds of different
websites depending on their size (How much storage they use compared to
how much storage is available on the server), the processing power,
usage by individual sites and the amount of bandwidth available.
Under most circumstances, it is not cost efficient to buy, set up and
maintain your own server, It requires a high level of technical
knowledge and a commitment to monitor the system 24 hours a day. That's
where a web hosting service comes in. They lease or own the servers, the
infrastructure, the local routers, firewalls, redundant power supplies,
and the data pipelines connecting those servers. When you lease a web
hosting plan to put your site on a server, you are leasing a small
portion of that infrastructure.
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