FACULTY OF ECONOMICS

Electronic Commerce

Chapter # 7
Web Server, Hardware and Software
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Recommended Book
• Electronic Commerce

by Gary Schneider ,
7th Edition
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Lecture at a glance!
• Web server basics

• Software for Web servers

• Understanding Domain Names

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• Server Client vs Server

– Host that manages network resources and providing services to other
Computers called client in the network
– Fulfills client requests or respond to the request of clients
– More memory, larger hard disk drives, and faster processors
– Can be dedicated or general purpose
• Web server, e-mail server, database server and Print server
• Client
– Less powerful than server
– Normally request for services from server (print request, webpage request)
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Introduction (Technological advances)

• Computer and communications costs decreasing
• Computer power and speed increasing
• Speed of data transfers virtually unlimited
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Application Service Providers (ASP’s)
• Provide customized business software applications over Internet
• Develop commonly used applications and provide customization
• Applications maintained and updated by ASP
• Able to provide applications with less development time
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www.eproject.com (example)
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Sentai.cognos.com (Asp example)
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Web Server Basics
• Respond to requests from Web client computers
• Web client typically request and web server responds to those
requests
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Web Server Basics

• Web Server Software

1) Operating system
2) Databases
3) Web Server Programs
4) Server Side Language
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Operating System
• Software that manages computer’s resources and typically use to
operate hardware (computer)
• Operating system tasks
– Running programs and allocating computer resources
• Types of operating systems
– Multi-user, multi-processing, multi-tasking
• Major Operating systems
– Unix, Linux, Macintosh and MS Windows
• Linux
– Open-source operating system and widely used for web hosting
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Web server platform
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Databases
• An organized collection of logically related data

– Like Kardan University Database includes Student, Teacher, Program,

Semester, Courses, Library data but no patient data

• Database management system (DBMS)

– Software that is used to create, maintain the storage, retrieval, security

and integrity of data in a database
• Major DBMS
– MS Access, MS SQL Server, Oracle, MySQL
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Client Vs Server side Language
• Client–side Language
– Programs running on web clients use to design web pages
• Hyper text Markup Language (HTML)
• Server-side Language
– Programs running on Web server create Web pages before sending them
back to the requesting Web clients
• Active Server Pages (ASP)
• JavaServer Pages (JSP)
• PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP)
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Web Server Program
• Most popular Web server programs which use to execute server side scripting
– Apache Web Server
– Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS)
– Sun Java System Web Server (JSWS)

• Dynamic page
– Web page whose content is shaped or changed by a program in response to user
requests
– Server side languages are used to create dynamic contents
• Static page
– An unchanging page retrieved from disk or a web that does not change contents.
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Web Server Software
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Domain Names
• Real estate of the Internet usually Point to a space in webserver
• Three parts (www.kardan.edu.af)
– Host name – usually www
– Domain name – name of company or key word or phrase
– Top-level domain (TLD) – describes type of organization that owns the
domain name (com and org are widely used)
– Optional country code (.af for Afghanistan)
• How to get a domain name?
– Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)
• Regulates domain names and IP addresses
• www.networksolutions.com and www.register.com register domains
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Common TLD
Extension Abbreviation of What it refers to

.com commercial Used by businesses

.net network Used by Service providers initially, now also used
by many businesses
.org Organization Used by non-profit organizations
.edu Education Used by Universities, schools
.gov Government Used by Government departments
.info Information Site is designed to provide information rather than
sell products or services
.biz Business Used by Businesses, although less common than
alternatives above
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Common country codes
Code Country Code Country

.af Afghanistan .nz New Zealand

.uk United Kingdom .in India
.jp Japan .us USA (not often used)
.au Australia .it Italy
.my Malaysia .fr France
.ch China .pk Pakistan
www.kardan.edu.af