Web Server and its Types

In this tutorial, you will learn about web servers and what are its types.The most important thing to know is how one can define a web server.Every Web Site which sits on a computer known as a Web Server.Web server is always connected to Internet.

Whenever a person registers a domain name e-g "developmentdemos.com" HE/SHE have to specify the IP address of the Web server that will host a site.Web server which is connected to the internet has given a unique address made up of a series of four numbers between 0 and 255 separated by periods.

The main leading Web servers are as follows :

Apache HTTP Server

Apache Software Foundation has developed the most popular Web Server in the world known as Apache HTTP Server.

Following are the Operating Systems on which Apache HTTP Server can be installed :

1. Linux
2. Unix
3. Windows
4. FreeBSD
5. Mac OS X

Almost 60 percent of the Web Server machines run the Apache Web Server.

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.

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.

Sun Java System Web Server

This web server from Sun Microsystems is suited for medium and large web sites. 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  etc.