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Chapter 3 E-business infrastructure 125

Web browsers and servers
Web browsers Web browsers are software such as Microsoft Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox which
Browsers such as Mozilla we use to access the information on the WWW that is stored on web servers.
Firefox or Microsoft
Internet Explorer provide Web servers are used to store, manage and supply the information on the WWW. The
an easy method of main web browsers are Microsoft Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox with the Apple
accessing and viewing Safari browser and Google Chrome having relatively small market share. Browsers display
information stored as
web documents on the text and graphics accessed from web sites and provide the interactions.
different servers. Figure 3.7 indicates the process by which web browsers communicate with web servers. A
Web servers request from the client PC is executed when the user types in a web address, clicks on a
Store and present the hyperlink or fills in an online form such as a search. This request is then sent to the ISP and
web pages accessed by routed across the Internet to the destination server using the mechanism described in the
web browsers.
section on protocols in networking standards, below. The server then returns the requested
Static web page web page if it is a static (fixed) web page, or, if it requires reference to a database, such as a
A page on the web server request for product information, it will pass the query on to a database server and will then
that is invariant.
return this to the customer as a dynamically created web page.
Dynamically created Dynamic web sites with e-commerce facilities are not created simply using static HTML;
web page instead they are implemented through additional functions defined in a web application
A page that is created in framework which use standard programming conventions or application programming
real time, often with refer-
ence to a database query, interfaces (APIs) in combination with data storage to achieve different tasks such as simply
in response to a user adding a user to a system or rendering the different page elements of a site. They provide
request.
standard functions in libraries to make it quicker to develop functionality than starting from
Web application lower-level coding. Functions in the web application framework are executed by a web
frameworks application server which comprises software processes running on the server which accepts
A standard programming
framework based on and actions requests via the principal web server software (e.g. Apache or Microsoft Infor-
reusable library functions mation Server). We give examples of different web application frameworks and servers in
for creating dynamic web Chapter 12.
sites through a program-
ming language. Information on each page request is stored in a transaction log file or web analytics
system which records the page requested, potential errors and the time it was made and the
Web application
server source of the referral or originating site. The data collection method has significant manage-
A collection of software
processes which is
accessed by a standard
programming interface
http ‘send’ communication Server returns
(API) of a web
application framework to page requested
serve dynamic website User requests page
functionality in response http ‘get’ communication
to requests received from
browsers. They are
designed to manage Server running
multiple requests from web server
multiple users and will software
provide load-balancing to
support high volumes of ISP The Internet ISP
usage.
Transaction log files
A web-server file that
Client PC running
records all page requests.
web browser
Web analytics
system
Information on visitor
volumes, sources and
pages visited are
analysed through web Transaction HTML and Database and
analytics systems. applications
log file graphics files
servers
Figure 3.7 Information exchange between a web browser and a web server