Unit

2: Issues of Web Technology (4 Hrs.)

2.1. Architectural issues of web layer;

2.2. HTTP: Definition and Function;
2.3. FTP: Definition and Function;
2.4. Tier Technology: 2-Tier, 3-Tier and n-Tier

Asian, Prabin Silwal

Architectural Issues of Web Layer:
• The web layer is also referred to as the UI layer. The web layer is primarily concerned with
presenting the user interface and the behavior of the application (handling user
interactions/events). While the web layer can also contain logic, core application logic is
usually located in the services layer.
The three Layers within the Web Layer are:
• HTML-The Content Layer: The content layer is where you store all the content that your
customers want to read or look at. This includes text and images as well as multimedia. It's
also important to make sure that every aspect of your site is represented in the content
layer. That way, your customers who have JavaScript turned off or can't view CSS will still
have access to the entire site, if not all the functionality.
• CSS - the Styles Layer: Store all your styles for your Web site in an external style sheet. This
defines the way the pages should look, and you can have separate style sheets for various
media types. Store your CSS in an external style sheet so that you can get the benefits of
the style layer across the site.
• JavaScript - the Behavior Layer: JavaScript is the most commonly used language for writing
the behavior layer; ASP, CGI and PHP can also generate Web page behaviors. However,
when most developers refer to the behavior layer, they mean that layer that is activated
directly in the Web browser - so JavaScript is nearly always the language of choice. You use
this layer to interact directly with the DOM or Document Object Model.
Asian, Prabin Silwal
• Benefits of separating the layers are:
• Shared resources: There is no duplication of effort, and whenever the file
changes, it changes for every page that uses it without you making more
than one change.
• Faster downloads: Once the script or stylesheet has been downloaded by
your customer the first time, it is cached. Then every other page that is
downloaded loads more quickly in the browser window.
• Multi-person teams: you can divide up the workload without worrying
about permissions or content management
• Accessibility: External style sheets and script files are more accessible to
most browsers, For example, you can set up a style sheet that is displayed
only for screen readers or a script library that's only used by people on cell
phones.
• Backwards compatibility: more backwards compatible because browsers
that can't use technology like CSS and JavaScript can still view the HTML.
Asian, Prabin Silwal
• When you're creating a Web page, it is important to keep the layers separate. Using
external style sheets is the best way to separate your content from your design.
And the same is true for using external JavaScript files.
• Some of the benefits of separating the layers are:
• Shared resources: When you write an external CSS file or JavaScript file, you can use that file
by any page on your Web site. There is no duplication of effort, and whenever the file changes,
it changes for every page that uses it without you making more than one change.
• Faster downloads: Once the script or stylesheet has been downloaded by your customer the
first time, it is cached. Then every other page that is downloaded loads more quickly in the
browser window.
• Multi-person teams: If you have more than one person working on a Web site at once, you can
divide up the workload without worrying about permissions or content management. You can
also hire people who are style/design experts to work on the CSS while your scripters work on
the JavaScript, and your writers work in the content files.
• Accessibility: External style sheets and script files are more accessible to more browsers,
because they can be ignored more easily, and because they provide more options. For
example, you can set up a style sheet that is displayed only for screen readers or a script library
that's only used by people on cell phones.
• Backwards compatibility: When you have a site that is designed with the development layers,
it will be more backwards compatible because browsers that can't use technology like CSS and
JavaScript can still view the HTML.
Asian, Prabin Silwal
HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol):
• is a TCP/IP based communication protocol
• used to deliver virtually all files and other data, collectively called
resources, on the World Wide Web.
• A browser is works as an HTTP client because it sends requests to an HTTP
server which is called Web server.
• The Web Server then sends responses back to the client.
• The standard and default port for HTTP servers to listen on is 80 but it can
be changed to any other port like 8080 etc.
• There are three important things about HTTP of which you should be
aware:
• · HTTP is connectionless:
• After a request is made, the client disconnects from the server and
waits for a response. The server must re-establish the connection
after it processes the request.
Asian, Prabin Silwal
HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol):
• HTTP is media independent: Any type of data can be sent by HTTP
as long as both the client and server know how to handle the data
content. How content is handled is determined by the MIME
specification.
• · HTTP is stateless: This is a direct result of HTTP's being
connectionless. The server and client are aware of each other only
during a request. Afterwards, each forgets the other. For this reason
neither the client nor the browser can retain information between
different requests across the web pages.

Asian, Prabin Silwal

• Like most network protocols, HTTP uses the client-server model:
• An HTTP client opens a connection and sends a request message to an HTTP
server; the server then returns a response message, usually containing the
resource that was requested. After delivering the response, the server closes
the connection.
The format of the request and response messages is similar and will have
following structure:
• An initial line carriage return (CR) , line feed (LF)
• Zero or more header lines CRLF
• A blank line i.e. a CRLF
• An optional message body like file, query data or query output.

Asian, Prabin Silwal

• CR and LF mean ASCII values 13 and 10.
• The initial line is different for the request than for the response.
• Initial Request Line: (has three parts, separated by spaces):
• HTTP Method Name, local path of the requested resource, version of HTTP
• Example: GET /path/to/file/index.html HTTP/1.0
• Initial Response line(status line): (has three parts separated by spaces)
• version of HTTP, response status code, an English reason phrase describing the status code.
• Example: HTTP/1.0 200 OK. or HTTP/1.0 404 Not Found
• Header lines : provide information about the request or response, or about the
object sent in the message body.
• The header lines are in the usual text header format ( i.e. one line per header and of the
form "Header-Name: value", ending with CRLF).
• Example of Header Line is:
• User-agent: Mozilla/3.0Gold or Last-Modified: Fri, 31 Dec 1999 23:59:59 GMT
• An HTTP message may have a body of data sent after the header lines.
• In a request, this is where user-entered data or uploaded files are sent to the server.
• In a response, this is where the requested resource is returned to the client (the most
common use of the message body), or perhaps explanatory text if there's an error.
Asian, Prabin Silwal
HTTP: header fields
• HTTP header fields are components of the message header of requests and
responses in the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). They define the operating
parameters of an HTTP transaction.
• The header fields are transmitted after the request or response line, the first
line of a message.
• Header fields are colon-separated name-value pairs in clear-text string format,
terminated by a carriage return (CR) and line feed (LF) character sequence.
• The end of the header fields is indicated by an empty field, resulting in the
transmission of two consecutive CR-LF pairs.
• Long lines can be folded into multiple lines; continuation lines are indicated by
presence of space (SP) or horizontal tab (HT) as first character on next line. Few
fields can also contain comments (i.e. in. User-Agent, Server, Via fields), which
can be ignored by software.
Asian, Prabin Silwal
• There are no limits to size of each header field name or value, or number of
headers in standard itself. However most servers, clients and proxy software,
impose some limits for practical and security reasons. For example; Apache 2.3
server by default limits each header size to 8190 bytes, and there can be at
most 100 headers in single request.
HTTP Session:
• An HTTP session is a sequence of network request-response transactions.
• An HTTP client initiates a request by establishing a Transmission Control
Protocol (TCP) connection to a particular port on a server (typically port 80; see
List of TCP and UDP port numbers).
• An HTTP server listening on that port waits for a client's request message. Upon
receiving the request, the server sends back a status line, such as "HTTP/1.1
200 OK", and a message of its own, the body of which is perhaps the requested
resource, an error message, or some other information
Asian, Prabin Silwal
File Transfer Protocol:
• File Transfer Protocol (FTP) lives up to its name and provides a method for
transferring files over a network from one computer to another.
• More generally, it provides for some simple file management on the
contents of a remote computer.
• It is an old protocol and is used less than it was before the World Wide Web
came along.
• Today, its primary use is uploading files to a Web site.
• It can also be used for downloading from the Web but, more often than not,
downloading is done via HTTP. Sites that have a lot of downloading (software
sites, for example) will often have an FTP server to handle the traffic.
• If FTP is involved, the URL will have ftp: at the front.

Asian, Prabin Silwal

• The File Transfer Protocol is used to send files from one system to another
under user commands.
• Both text and binary files are accommodated and the protocol provides
features for controlling user access.
• When a user wishes to engage in File transfer, FTP sets up a TCP connection to
the target system for the exchange of control messages.
• These allow used ID and password to be transmitted and allow the user to
specify the file and file action desired.
• Once file transfer is approved, a second TCP connection is set up for data
transfer.
• The file is transferred over the data connection, without the overhead of
headers, or control information at the application level.
• When the transfer is complete, the control connection is used to signal the
completion and to accept new file transfer commands.
Asian, Prabin Silwal
• FTP can be run in active or passive mode, which determines how the data
connection is established.
• In active mode, the client sends the server the IP address and port number on
which the client will listen, and the server initiates the TCP connection.

• In passive mode, the client sends a PASV command to the server and receives
an IP address and port number in return.
• The client uses these to open the data connection to the server.
• At the condition when the client is behind a firewall and unable to accept
incoming TCP connections, passive mode may be used.

Asian, Prabin Silwal

Data transfer can be done in any of three modes:
• Stream mode: Data is sent as a continuous stream, relieving FTP from doing
any processing. Rather, all processing is left up to TCP. No End-of-file indicator
is needed, unless the data is divided into records.
• Block mode: FTP breaks the data into several blocks (block header, byte count,
and data field) and then passes it on to TCP.
• Compressed mode: Data is compressed using a single algorithm (usually run-
length encoding).

Asian, Prabin Silwal

Client/Server Model:
• The client–server model is a computing model that acts as distributed
application which partitions tasks or workloads between the providers of a
resource or service, called servers, and service requesters, called clients.
• Often clients and servers communicate over a computer network on
separate hardware, but both client and server may reside in the same
system.
• A server machine is a host that is running one or more server programs
which share their resources with clients.
• A client does not share any of its resources, but requests a server's content
or service function.
• Clients therefore initiate communication sessions with servers which await
incoming requests.

Asian, Prabin Silwal

Client/Server Architecture:
• Client server network architecture consists of two kinds of computers:
clients and servers.
• Clients are the computers that that do not share any of its resources but
requests data and other services from the server computers and server
computers provide services to the client computers by responding to client
computers requests.
• Normally servers are powerful computers and clients are less powerful
personal computers.
• Web servers are included as part of a larger package of internet and intranet
related programs for serving e- mail, downloading requests for FTP files and
building and publishing web pages.

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Advantages
• The client/ server architecture reduces network traffic by providing a
query response to the user rather than transferring total files.
• The client/ server model improves multi-user updating through a
graphical user interface (GUI) front end to the shared database.
• Easy to implement security policies, since the data are stored in
central location
• Simplified network administration

Disadvantages
• Failure of the server causes whole network to be collapsed
• Expensive than P2P, Dedicated powerful servers are needed
• Extra effort are needed for administering and managing the server.
Asian, Prabin Silwal
• Different Models of Client/Server Architecture:
• Client/Sever architecture can be of different model based on the number of layers it
holds. Some of them are;
2-Tier Architecture
• 2-tier architecture is used to describe client/server systems where the client requests
resources and the server responds directly to the request, using its own resources. This
means that the server does not call on another application in order to provide part of
the service. It runs the client processes separately from the server processes, usually
on a different computer:
• The client processes provide an interface for the customer, and gather and present
data usually on the customer’s computer. This part of the application is the
presentation layer
• The server processes provide an interface with the data store of the business. This
part of the application is the data layer
• The business logic that validates data, monitors security and permissions, and
performs other business rules can be housed on either the client or the server, or
split between the two.
• Fundamental units of work required to complete the business process
• Business rules can be automated by an application program.
Asian, Prabin Silwal
3-Tier Architecture
In 3-tier architecture, there is an intermediary level, meaning the
architecture is
• generally split up between:
• – A client, i.e. the computer, which requests the resources, equipped with a user
interface (usually a web browser) for presentation purposes
• – The application server (also called middleware), whose task it is to provide the
requested resources, but by calling on another server
• – The data server, which provides the application server with the data it requires

Asian, Prabin Silwal

N-Tier Architecture (multi-tier)
• N-tier architecture (with N more than 3) is really 3 tier architectures in which
the middle tier is split up into new tiers. The application tier is broken down
into separate parts. What these parts are differs from system to system. The
following picture shows it:
• The primary advantage of N-tier architectures is that they make load balancing
possible.
• Since the application logic is distributed between several servers, processing
can then be more evenly distributed among those servers.
• N-tiered architectures are also more easily scalable, since only servers
experiencing high demand, such as the application server, need be upgraded.
• The primary disadvantage of N-tier architectures is that it is also more
difficult to program and test an N-tier architecture due to its increased
complexity.
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Advantages of Multi-Tier Client/Server architectures include:
• Changes to the user interface or to the application logic are largely
independent from one another, allowing the application to evolve easily to
meet new requirements.
• Network bottlenecks are minimized because the application layer does not
transmit extra data to the client, only what is needed to handle a task.
• The client is insulated from database and network operations. The client can
access data easily and quickly without having to know where data is or how
many servers are on the system.
• Database connections can be 'pooled' and thus shared by several users,
which greatly reduces the cost associated with per-user licensing.
• The organization has database independence because the data layer is
written using standard SQL which is platform independent. The enterprise is
not tied to vendor- specific stored procedures.
• The application layer can be written in standard third or fourth generation
languages, such as ASP, PHP with which the organization's in-house
programmers are experienced.
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What kind of systems can benefit?
• Generally, any Client/Server system can be implemented in an 'N-Tier'
architecture, where application logic is partitioned among various
servers.
• This application partitioning creates an integrated information
infrastructure which enables consistent, secure, and global access to
critical data.
• A significant reduction in network traffic, which leads to faster
network communications, greater reliability, and greater overall
performance is also made possible in a 'N-Tier' Client/Server
architecture.

Asian, Prabin Silwal