A Review of Internet Technology - Part 1: Client Side Technologies

The first topic of this review deals with the client part of a Client/Server relationship.  The definition of client is: an application or system that accesses a service made available by a server.  Note in the definition there are really two types of clients:  there is a client application and a client system.

Let's discuss the differences between the two:

1)  Client Application - a client application is usually a small program that is used to access the server program.  It is sometimes accessed by the client system.  An example of this that most every web user has used is the Web Browser.  When you use a web browser you are using client software that allows you to access the internet.  The browser allows you to input web addresses and then renders those web pages so that you can view them.  Without the browser, you wouldn't be able to access all of the multimedia of the web.

2) Client System - just about every personal computer out there could be considered a client system.  You are using this system to access different types of servers:  Application, Database, Web, etc.  In the past, there was really no such thing as a client system.  You would go directly to a mainframe if you wanted to access it.  Now, you can access that same server/mainframe from just about anywhere you can get on the internet.  The client system alone has a lot less power than the server system, but as long as that connection can be made to the server, you still have full functionality of the server.  This is a great cost saving tool as you can purchase several inexpensive client machines to access the one expensive server machine.

Clients have made a lot of progress over the years.  Today, many client systems can act as both clients and servers themselves.  On a small scale you could potentially run all components (Client, DB Server, Application Server, Web Server, etc.) on one machine.

Mobile computing is really the future of the internet, and mobile devices are themselves clients.  There are also client applications that are typically installed on the mobile devices so that a server application/device can be accessed.  This is a great model as all information is stored at the server level.  If a phone is lost or destroyed, the data on the server is still there and can be accessed by any phone.  This is really the beauty of the client/server model.  All information is centrally stored and any client be it desktop, tablet, or mobile device can access that same information.

All reference information for this blog was obtained at the following locations:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Client%E2%80%93server_model
http://compnetworking.about.com/od/basicnetworkingfaqs/a/client-server.htm