The www so called the World Wide Web or the internet (more commonly) has many computers and other devices interconnected with different types of connecting mediums. They are computers called Web Servers or web
clients in this network, Web clients are commonly known internet browsing software called browsers (for example Microsoft Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator, Mozilla FireFox), these
client softwares use HTTP protocol which is widely used in www for transferring all the HTML, XML, ASP, JSP, images, animations, applets, servlets etc for displaying the information of the web site.
A web
Server is a computer which can handle many connections of web clients for the purpose of sending the web site
contents requested by the web client. It has higher processing power and storage capacity to store and forward the web site contents each time it is requested from the web client.
The web
architecture consists of a web server and a web client. There are 3 types of web architecture
1. One-tier architecture : Here the web clients are interacting with a single web server machine which would connect to a
database for information retrieval from the database and also send the contents of the web site.
This architecture is suitable for static web pages i.e. which do not receive information from user but only responds to the users.
2. Two-tier architecture: Here there are web client, web server and a database server particularly for handling database related queries and responses to the users. The database server handles retrieval and storage of data into the database; hence the server’s resources for handling these activities are set free thus server responds more quickly to client connections and is more capable.
This architecture is used for e-commerce applications but some e-commerce applications also need payment methods which require validating their payment details and also keeping these details secure over the internet. Thus with a 2-tier architecture we can send our quires to the server which uses the database server to execute the query and then it responds with a suitable response. For example a train enquiry web site.
3. Three-tier architecture: Web client, web server, database server and application server for implementing server side scripting for web sites with dynamic contents. The application server is meant for processing the client request along with the business logic. The application server executes the server side scripting code inside a web page, for example a web page which inputs user name and then it displays it on different web pages dynamically generated based on our input. These servers are widely used to implement the business logic of an e-commerce system.
More abstracts about the Web Architecture