A web server is a software and hardware that uses HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) and other protocols to respond to client requests made over the World Wide Web. The main job of a web server is to display website content through storing, processing and delivering webpages to users.

Every Website sits on a computer known as a Web server. This server is always connected to the internet. Every Web server that is connected to the Internet is given a unique address made up of a series of four numbers between 0 and 255 separated by periods. For example, 68.178.157.132 or 68.122.35.127.

When you register a web address, also known as a domain name, you have to specify the IP address of the Web server that will host the site. You can load up with Dedicated Servers that can support your web-based operations.

Types of Web Servers.

There are five leading web servers.

i. Apache (Apache HTTP Server)

ii. IIS (Internet Information Services)

iii. lighttpd and (lighttpd)

iv. SJS (Sun Java System Web Server)

v. Jigsaw Server

i. Apache (Apache HTTP Server)

This is the most popular web server in the world developed by the Apache Software Foundation. Apache web server is an open source software and can be installed on almost all operating systems including Linux, Unix, Windows, FreeBSD, Mac OS X and more. About 60% of the web server machines run the Apache Web Server.

ii. IIS (Internet Information Services)

The Internet Information Server (IIS) is a high performance Web Server from Microsoft. This web server runs on Windows NT/2000 and 2003 platforms ( and may be on upcoming new Windows version also). IIS comes bundled with Windows NT/2000 and 2003; Because IIS is tightly integrated with the operating system so it is relatively easy to administer it.

iii. lighttpd and (lighttpd)

The lighttpd, pronounced lighty is also a free web server that is distributed with the FreeBSD operating system. This open source web server is fast, secure and consumes much less CPU power. Lighttpd can also run on Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and Solaris operating systems.

iv. SJS (Sun Java System Web Server)

This web server from Sun Microsystems is suited for medium and large websites. Though the server is free it is not open source. It however, runs on Windows, Linux and Unix platforms. The Sun Java System web server supports various languages, scripts and technologies required for Web 2.0 such as JSP, Java Servlets, PHP, Perl, Python, Ruby on Rails, ASP and Coldfusion etc.

v. Jigsaw Server

Jigsaw (W3C's Server) comes from the World Wide Web Consortium. It is open source and free and can run on various platforms like Linux, Unix, Windows, Mac OS X Free BSD etc. Jigsaw has been written in Java and can run CGI scripts and PHP programs.

How the Web Works

When you enter something like Google.com the request goes to one of many special computers on the Internet known as Domain Name Servers (DNS). All these requests are routed through various routers and switches. The domain name servers keep tables of machine names and their IP addresses, so when you type in Google.com it gets translated into a number, which identifies the computers that serve the Google Website to you.