This page will give you some Internet Information and Background, so you may better understand some of our services.
What is the Internet? Simply put the Internet is nothing more than a very large network of computers. There are a number of different types of computers attached to the Internet. Here are a few types:
Client Computers - That's your machine when you attach to the Internet using any of the possible methods of connection. Dialup (like AOL, MSN or another ISP), DSL, Cable, T1.......
Web Servers - These are server type computers that are attached to the Internet and give you web pages when you request them with your browser.
Email Servers - There are basically two kinds of email servers. Those that collect email for you and those that send email when you create a message and send it.
DNS Servers - DNS Servers are Domain Name Servers. You probably won't be involved with these much, but they act in the background of the Internet every time you either enter a URL or click a link. Simply put, DNS servers change our human names to computer numbers so that computers can find the web pages we are requesting.
Other Servers - Although there are many other servers that provide services on the internet, unless you do or need something special, you usually won't use these servers. They include things like FTP, Gopher, Newsgroups, and other such services.
Although technically, things are much more complicated than stated above, this does give us a basic outline of how things work within the Internet. Here's a picture to better visualize what happens:
When you dialup to the Internet, your Client Computer is connected to the 'Internet Cloud'. Once connected your system may communicate to any of the millions of other computers or servers on the Internet. If you enter an URL address into your computer's browser, you are asking your computer to connect to a specific website on the Internet. Here's the process of what actually happens:
Your browser 'talks' to your local DNS server to try and obtain an IP address for the website name you have requested.
If the Local DNS server doesn't know the address it asks other DNS servers close by. If it still cannot find the requested address, the DNS server will consult the Root DNS Server and ask it the location of the Authoritative DNS server. The local DNS server then goes to the Authoritative DNS server and asks for the address. Upon finding the requested address the local DNS server will remember the address for a time and pass the address to your browser.
Your browser will then access the Web Server on the address given by the DNS server.
The web server will 'serve-up' the web page that you have requested.
Your browser will display the web page that was sent to you by the web server.
The same process happens each time you request a web page, send an email, or receive emails to your email program. As you can see the DNS servers are very active, even though you never really know anything about them.
Why is this so important to know? Well, it helps to understand what services you must have if you wish to have a website of your own.
There are several ways that you may have a website of your own.
You may have a server of your own that can host your website. To do this you must have a Static IP address that is active at all times, a web server, and a domain name that points to your server. The domain name must also have associated with it a minimum of 2 Authoritative DNS Servers. The DNS servers for your domain name may be hosted by someone else or you may have your own DNS server.
You may host your website with a hosting service. The hosting service will have and control the Web server and DNS server necessary for your Domain Name and Web Site. They 'rent' you space on their server for your website.
Of coarse if you have a website, you will also want to have email accounts using the same domain name. The same things mentioned above applies to email services. You may have your own email servers, or you can have the email accounts hosted with an email hosting service.
For those of you interested, we can provide Domain Names, Website Hosting, DNS Hosting, and Email Hosting. Check out our Domain Name and Web Hosting services.
If you would like your own your own Web Server, check out our Servers.
©
1998-2003 Robert Snyder
First created: August 30, 2002
Last updated: May 21, 2003
URL: http://www.bobsgroup.com/internetinfo.html
NO Portion of this page may be copied or used without permission, including the
graphic of J Edgar Swoop.