How Does the Internet Work?
By: Brittney In Beta
Tags: Coding, Technology, Programming, Software Development, Software Engineering

Introduction

Everyday we access the computer, jump onto our favorite websites and without thinking are surfing hundreds of pages of information. The internet is an amazing and powerful tool at our disposal, whenever we choose to use it. Without thinking we tend to take the internet for granted every single day.

In this article we will dive deeper into the inner-workings of the internet.

Before starting your development journey it is good to understand how the internet works. Think of it this way, before you start to create something for a platform you want to understand how the platform works. The in’s and out’s, the good and the bad.

Understanding this will allow you as a developer to better create websites and web apps that will thrive.

So what exactly is the internet?

The internet is a networking system. Imagine the internet as a long piece of wire that connects different computers to each other. One computer can be located in Arizona, and the other in New York. Through this wire, data can be delivered from one computer to another. These computers that users would power on to access the internet is called, the client.

Some of the computers on the wire are not like the others. They have a special job. They have to be online 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. What’s the saying? No rest for the wicked. These special computers serve the requested data to a client. So what is this special computer? It is called a server. Fitting, don’t you think?

Think of a server as an extensive library, open 24/7 waiting to hear from you, the client, so it can serve you with all of the answers and cute animal pictures you can handle.

Imagine if you were able to physically walk into this massive library of information. This could be overwhelming and take a really long time to find what you are looking for. How does the internet solve this problem?

When you, as the user accesses a website for example Facebook.com , your browser will deliver a message to your internet service provider (ISP). Your internet service provider are companies like Comcast or Cox who provide internet to your residence.

When your browser sends your ISP the message that you, as the client would like to access Facebook.com, the ISP will then deliver that message to a domain name server or DNS.

A DNS essentially is the phonebook of the internet. When it receives the message from the ISP, it will look through its database to find the exact IP address of the website you are trying to reach. Now this leads us to our next question. What is an IP address?

Every computer has a unique IP address. A great example of this would be our ID cards. We each have one and each of our ID cards has a unique ID number. When a client is requesting data each computer can be located by its unique IP address. Once the DNS finds the right IP address for Facebook.com it can then send it back to your browser.

Now that you have the exact IP address where you can find Facebook’s homepage, you can now relay a direct request to that address through your internet service provider. This request will be delivered through the internet backbone a.k.a. our wire.

The internet backbone are comprehensive underwater cables that run throughout the world. These cables power the internet and connect all of the worlds internet users. You can view the internet backbone at submarinecablemap.com.

Once you have the IP address you want to access, the browser will send another message through the internet service provider via the internet backbone to the server that is located at 31.13.64.35, the IP address you are trying to access, in this case, Facebook. The computer that is located at that address is the Facebook server. On this server are all of the files needed to view Facebook’s homepage. The server then sends all of the information back to the client via the internet backbone in a matter of milliseconds, where now the Facebook homepage is displayed for the client.

This is the power of the internet. I challenge you to open a browser and type in 31.13.64.35, Facebook’s IP address so you can see the homepage delivered to your screen.