Databases And Architecture

By Benny Lars

When you are on the web, you usually do a whole bunch of things. Some of these include submitting forms, doing searches and clicking on links. You may not realize it but all of these activities involve use of resources that are usually contained in a web server. Even a simple retrieving of a home page requires that the web browser that you are using request it from a web browser.

Generally, these types of requests where a web browser requests for a resource and the web server responds with it is called a two-tier architecture. This is a simple request-response action since there is no sophisticated storage software involved. However, there comes a time when complicated operations that involve dynamic data will be undertaken. In such cases, a separate database to handle these requests will be used.

When a web browser requests a resource and the server response is generated from a database, such an architecture is called a three-tier architecture. Whenever access database requests are made, the web browser must first communicate with the server which in turn, communicates with the database management system that retrieves the requested data. The database management system is used to manage all the data that is created, modified, queried or deleted by users.

Whenever you access database information, you will need to have your web server process your requests that are implemented using scripts. This organization allows access database requests from thousands of users to be done simultaneously. For efficiency, many websites implement the web server and the database server on separate machines. In more advanced and high-end applications the load is further distributed by use of many machines.

The web today allows the use of the HTTP protocol to access database information. HTTP is conceptually simple. A request made in HTTP receives a response from the web server. The response is usually a HTML document, an image or a program output that is sent back to the web browser. When you access database servers, you will usually be either requesting from entry information that is cataloged or you will be making changes to the entries themselves. Despite their seemingly complex nature, database management systems offer users application interfaces to do that. It is usually not necessary to make internal configurations to the database server. In most cases, this will be done right on the web browser. So when you access database information the next time you are on the web, you may likely be doing that via a number of machines. Quite amazing, is it not? - 29875

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