Web Engineering

Arfan Shahzad
{ [email protected] }
 Standards and Protocols

• A standard is a level of quality or achievement, especially a level that

is thought to be acceptable. We use standards in order to judge the
quality of something else.

• Protocol is a system of rules about the correct way to act in

formal situations. A protocol is a set of rules
for exchanging information between computers.
 Standards and Protocols cont…
• A Network (internet) Protocol defines rules and agreements for
communication between network devices.

• The Internet Protocol family contains a set of related (and among the most
widely used) network protocols.

• As Client/ Server is basic architecture for internet, even N-layer

architectures thus formed are still principally based on the client/server
model.
 Standards and Protocols cont…
Who make standards and Protocols?
• There are two main groups:

• The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the main

international standards organization for the World Wide
Web(abbreviated WWW or W3).

• Internet Standards are created and published by the Internet

Engineering Task Force (IETF).
 Standards and Protocols cont…
Internet Protocols
• Web browser sends a request, and this request triggers a reply from a
Web server.

• While protocols, mainly the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP),

Internet Protocol (IP), and Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) are
higher-level protocols, which provides basics for further protocols.
 Standards and Protocols cont…
Internet Protocols
• There are number of Protocols play important role in internet
communication, some of them are given in subsequently:

• HTTP: Hyper Text Transfer Protocol: HTTP is the key protocol for being able
to transfer data across the Internet.

• HTTP allows the transfer of HyperText Markup Language (HTML) and other
related scripting languages (like CSS) to travel from servers to browsers.
 Standards and Protocols cont…
Internet Protocols
• HTTPS: Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure: HTTPS is a secure version
of HTTP.

• The Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) protocol facilitates a

secure communication over a network.

• Strictly speaking HTTPS is a layer on top of HTTP using Secure Socket

Layer (SSL).
 Standards and Protocols cont…
Internet Protocols
• SSL: Secure Sockets Layer: SSL allows security by allowing applications to encrypt
data that go from a client to a matching server.

• IP: Internet Protocol: Internet Protocol is connectionless and unreliable protocol.

• IP is responsible for basic networking. It ensures no guarantee of successfully

transmission of data.

• In order to make it reliable, it must be paired with reliable protocol such as TCP at
the transport layer.
 Standards and Protocols cont…
Internet Protocols
• Transmission Control Protocol: TCP is a connection oriented protocol
and offers end-to-end packet delivery.

• It acts as back bone for connection. It exhibits the following key

features:
• Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) corresponds to the Transport Layer of OSI
Model.
• TCP is a reliable and connection oriented protocol.
 Standards and Protocols cont…
Internet Protocols
• TCP offers connection oriented end-to-end packet delivery.

• TCP ensures reliability by sequencing bytes with a forwarding

acknowledgement number that indicates to the destination the next
byte the source expect to receive.
 Standards and Protocols cont…
Internet Protocols
• TELNET (telnet): The telnet (written in small caps) lets you connect to
a remote computer and work as if you were sitting in front of your
computer, no matter how far away you are.

• This is another old technology, first invented in 1969.

• By default, telnet does not encrypt data sent over the network so use
with caution!
 Standards and Protocols cont…
Internet Protocols
• SMTP: Simple Mail Transfer Protocol: SMTP (Postel 1982), combined
with POP3 or IMAP allows us to send and receive e mails.

• It transfers email amongst computers.

 Standards and Protocols cont…
Internet Protocols
• POP3: Post Office Protocol: The Post Office Protocol (latest version is
‘3’) provides basic client/ server features that help the user download
email from a POP3 email server to a computer (be it mobile or a
desktop).

• The main purpose of the protocol is to allow users to access their

email more freely.
 Standards and Protocols cont…
Internet Protocols
• IMAP4 Internet Message Access Protocol: Abbreviated to IMAP, this
protocol provides a richer set of features when compared to POP3.

• Worth mentioning that although IMAP and POP3 both help to

manage email, they cannot function together, i.e. the user must
choice one or the other.
 Standards and Protocols cont…
Internet Protocols
• Real Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP): The Real Time Streaming
Protocol (RTSP) represents a standard published by the Internet
Engineering Task Force (IETF), and is designed to support the delivery
of multimedia data in real-time conditions.
 Standards and Protocols cont…
Internet Protocols
• In contrast to HTTP, RTSP allows the transmission of resources to the
client in a timely context rather than delivering them in their entirety
(at once). This transmission form is commonly called streaming.

• For example, we can implement functions people are familiar with

from hi-fi devices, such as “pause”, “fast-forward”, or “rewinding
playback”, or reposition playback to a future or past point of time.
 Standards and Protocols cont…
Internet Protocols
• Session Tracking: Interactive Web Applications must be able to
distinguish requests by multiple simultaneous users and identify
related requests coming from the same user.

• The term session is used to define such a sequence of related HTTP

requests between a specific user and a server within a specific time
window.
 Standards and Protocols cont…
Internet Protocols
• Since HTTP is a stateless protocol, the Webserver cannot
automatically allocate incoming requests to a session.

• Two principal methods can be distinguished, to allow a Web server to

automatically allocate an incoming request to a session:
 Standards and Protocols cont…
Internet Protocols
• In each of its requests to a server, the client identifies itself with a
unique identification. This means that all data sent to the server are
then allocated to the respective session.

• All data exchanged between a client and a server are included in each
request a client sends to a server, so that the server logic can be
developed even though the communication is stateless.
 Standards and Protocols cont…
Internet Protocols
• In each of its requests to a server, the client identifies itself with a
unique identification. This means that all data sent to the server are
then allocated to the respective session.

• All data exchanged between a client and a server are included in each
request a client sends to a server, so that the server logic can be
developed even though the communication is stateless.
 Standards and Protocols cont…
Internet Standards
• HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language): HTML is the standard markup
language for Web pages.

• With HTML you can create your own Website.

 Standards and Protocols cont…
Internet Standards
• CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) CSS is the language we use to style an
HTML document. CSS describes how HTML elements should be
displayed.
 Standards and Protocols cont…
Internet Standards
• CGI means the “Common Gateway Interface”: gateway for everything. CGI
is one of the essential parts of HTTP (Hyper-Text Transfer Protocol).

• CGI is a set of standards that defines a standard way of passing information

or web-user requests to an application program and getting data back to
forward it to users.

• It is the exchange of information between the web server and a custom

script.
 Standards and Protocols cont…
Internet Standards
• When the users requested the web-page, the server sends the
requested web-page.

• The web server usually passes the information to all application

programs that process data and sends back an acknowledged
message; this technique of passing data back-and-forth between
server and application is the Common Gateway Interface.
 Standards and Protocols cont…
Internet Standards
• XML (eXtensible Markup Language): XML was designed to store and
transport data.

• XML was designed to be both human- and machine-readable.

• XML is often used for distributing data over the Internet.

• It is important (for all types of software developers!) to have a good

understanding of XML.
Standards and Protocols cont…
Internet Standards
Standards and Protocols cont…
Internet Standards
 Standards and Protocols cont…
Internet Standards
• WML (Wireless Markup Language): WML is an application of XML,
which is defined in a document-type definition.

• WML is based on HDML (Handheld Devices Markup Language) and is

modified so that it can be compared with HTML.

• WML takes care of the small screen and the low bandwidth of
transmission.
 Standards and Protocols cont…
Internet Standards
• WML (Wireless Markup Language): WML is an application of XML,
which is defined in a document-type definition.

• WML is based on HDML (Handheld Devices Markup Language) and is

modified so that it can be compared with HTML.

• WML takes care of the small screen and the low bandwidth of
transmission.
 Standards and Protocols cont…
Internet Standards
CGI (Common Gateway Interface) SSML (Speech Synthesis Markup Language)
CSS (Cascading style sheet) SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics)
DOM (Document Object Model) VXML (VoiceXML)
EME (Encrypted Media Extensions) WAI-ARIA
GRDDL (Gleaning Resource Description from Dialects of Language) WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines)
HTML (Hypertext Markup Langugae) WSDL (Web Services Description Language)
MathML (Mathematical Markup Language) XForms
OWL (Web Ontology Language) XHTML
P3P (Platform for Privacy Preference Project) XHTML + Voice
PROV (Provenance) XML (Extensible Markup Language)
RDF (Resource Description Framework) XML Events
SISR (Semantic Interpretation for Speech Recognition) XML Information Set
SKOS (Simple Knowledge Organization System) XML Schema
SMIL (Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language) Xpath
SOAP Xquery, XSL-FO, XSLT 22
SRGS (Speech Recognition Grammar Specification) SPARQL (RDF Query Language)