Networking Internet Basics
Published: 2021-01-14 17:14:54

What is the Internet?

The Internet is a large network of computers worldwide, which can exchange information between them. They can communicate because they are linked through telephone connections, cable, waves or another type of technology and thanks to the fact that they use a common language or protocol, TCP / IP, which are rules that tell us how data has to travel through the net.

How does the Internet work?

Internet architecture
Possibly the Internet can be considered the largest communications network on the planet, often referred to as "the network of networks" and formed by the interconnection of thousands (or even millions) of networks around the world.

We tend to think of the Internet as something abstract, often represented as a cloud that provides us with access to a large number of services..

The current structure of the Internet is based on the interconnection of networks in a more or less hierarchical way with several levels, known as tiers. In general, there are three levels known as Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3.

Types of connections between operators: The connection between the networks of different operators can be done in two ways:

Transit connections. Connection between operators of different hierarchy. The higher-ranking operator (provider) sells a transit connection to the lower-ranking operator (customer). The provider gives the customer access to all its routes, that is, the customer will receive both the routes from the provider's network and routes to other networks. The client publishes to the supplier only his routes and not others that he may have with other suppliers.

By definition, Tier 1 networks are the only ones that do not use transit connections.

Peering connection. Connection used for the exchange of traffic without cost between two operators. Each operator publishes only its routes and not other routes that it has with other providers or other peering routes, that is, the peering is used to access from an operator to the range of IP addresses of the other operator, but it does not serve to reach other ranges of addresses.

HTTP vs HTTPS
In order to understand the difference between HTTP and HTTPS, it is essential to know how the transmission of information works on the network. In other words, it is important that you know what HTTP is, how it evolved over the years and how HTTPS was born, a more secure information protocol that is becoming a standard when it comes to surfing the Internet.

What is HTTP? Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) (or Hypertext Transfer Protocol in Spanish) is an application layer protocol for the transmission of hypermedia documents, such as HTML. It was designed for communication between web browsers and servers, although it can be used for other purposes as well. It follows the classic client-server model, in which a client establishes a connection, making a request to a server and waiting for a response from it. It is a stateless protocol, which means that the server does not save any data (state) between two requests. Although in most cases it is based on a connection of the TCP / IP type, it can be used on any secure or trusted transport layer, that is, on any protocol that does not lose messages silently, such as UDP.

The need arose then to protect the information that is transferred between the user's browser and the web servers, that is, a more secure protocol was necessary to encrypt the connections so that no malicious user could intercept or steal it. Thus HTTPS arose.
The main difference between HTTP and HTTPS is security. The HTTPS protocol prevents other users from intercepting the information that is transferred between the client and the web server.

DNS
DNS is the acronym that forms the denomination Domain Name System or Domain Name System and in addition to pointing the domains to the corresponding server, it will help us to translate the real address, which is a numerical relationship called IP, in the domain name.

What are DNS for?
Well, DNS is used to tell the user who types a domain to which server he should go to pick up the web page he wants to consult.

Indeed the web pages are actually hosted under an IP address, for example our website www.digival.es really responds to the IP 85.112.29.231 but this system is capable of converting these numbers into the domain name www.digival.es. Remembering the IPs of each web page would be too hard work, that's why the domain name system was created, to allow creating terms and names that are easier to remember.

How DNS works
What better way to explain it with a practical example, and with actions that we carry out every day. Continuing with the example of our website or any other that has been contracted with our web hosting plans, suppose that a user wishes to access it, for which, he types our domain www.digival.es in his browser. When pressing the enter key, the browser will consult with the DNS server what is the IP address of our domain, and in turn it will match the information between the IP and the domain name, finally it will deliver to the browser the IP 85.112.29.231 that it can return our website to our user.

How to change DNS
As a domain registrar that we are, we provide a control panel that allows you to make these changes online. In our case, it is important to be clear that to change the DNS of an individual domain, it is necessary to go to the "Domains" section and configure the DNS of the domain individually, either by writing the new ones that we want to assign or by choosing among the ones we have. recorded in our Customer Area.
We must be careful with DNS management, because as we have already explained, it depends on them that our domain works, or what is the same, our website, our mail or our applications and databases.

Web Servers
By "Web server" we can mean hardware or software, or both working together.

In terms of hardware, a web server is a computer that stores the files that make up a website (eg HTML documents, images, CSS style sheets, and JavaScript files) and delivers them to the end-user device. It is connected to the internet and is accessible through a domain name like mozilla.org.
In terms of software, a web server has many parties in charge of control over how users access files, at least one HTTP server. An HTTP server is a piece of software that comprises URLs (web addresses) and HTTP (the protocol your browser uses to view web pages).
At the most basic level, whenever a browser needs a file stored on a web server, the browser will make a request to the server via HTTP. When the request reaches the correct web server (hardware), the HTTP server (software) sends the previously requested file, also through HTTP.
By "Web server" we can mean hardware or software, or both working together.

Traditional Web Hosting vs. Cloud Computing
Traditional Hosting vs. Cloud Hosting: Benefits and Drawbacks of Each ‘Cloud hosting vs traditional hosting’ is a complicated question that depends on a variety of factors unique to each client. Thus, deciding whether to choose cloud hosting or traditional hosting is a case-by-case basis.

Although cloud hosting is a growing force in Internet storage and website creation, traditional hosting users should not be worried. Traditional hosting still provides a wide array of benefits that will make it relevant for many years to come.

Static vs. Dynamic pages
Dynamic vs. Static Websites: What's the Difference?

There are essentially two types of websites: static and dynamic. However this can be confusing because
there can be static elements of a dynamic site, dynamic elements of a static site… as we continue into the age of Progressive Web Apps and website personalization, the lines become blurred between what’s static and dynamic.

What can be Static or Dynamic?
When discussing whether a site is static or dynamic, half of the battle is determining what aspect of the site you’re discussing. The code of the page, delivery of the page, and the client browser can all be considered either static or dynamic.

What’s a Dynamic Website?
Dynamic sites use server side languages to process requests at the time it’s made and generate a page and its contents in real-time. This means that dynamic websites interact with the user accessing the site and render content depending on the user’s actions or settings. One example of a dynamic website is web apps. Take Twitter as an example: when you log in, it displays content just for you.

While dynamic sites are extremely powerful they are also more complex. Along with this complexity are many advantages and disadvantages inherent to a dynamic site build.

Dynamic Site Advantages
Powered by Databases. By connecting a dynamic site to a database, you’re able to easily request information in an organized and structured way to create and display content depending on how the user wants to view it.
Connect to a CMS
This ability to connect to a database means that you can also connect to a CMS. Content stored in the CMS can be a variety of things, from the text to the images that are displayed, page layouts, site settings, and more. This allows for extreme flexibility when building sites, and also allows for multiple users to be able to manipulate content as needed.

Low Ongoing Maintenance Cost
Since you can connect a dynamic site to a CMS there are little or no ongoing costs unless there is a change in the basic design or an extra capability is added to the site.

Dynamic Site Disadvantages
Design Limitations
When generating content on a page from a database, you’re typically pulling in content and telling it to display a certain way, no matter what the content is. This can make design tricky, as you’ll likely opt for a one-size-fits-all approach. Depending on the CMS, it can be difficult to build multiple designs to display different types of content in different types of ways.

With dynamic sites, you are forced into using templates for your page, or you are committing to building custom templates for every page. This is easier in some CMSes such as Zesty.io but harder to do in others such as Wordpress or Drupal.

Can Incur Upfront Build Costs
When building a dynamic site, it can incur much more work upfront as you’re connecting the site to a database, building the foundation for the site to generate content, etc. Additional functionality may also cost more as you add features to your dynamic site throughout its life. While maintenance costs are low for a dynamic site, they can incur much higher initial build costs than a static site.

What’s a Static Website?
Static websites are pre-rendered, typically cached, and served by a CDN. The site is pre-generated by individual files that are delivered to all users in the same manner. There are advantages and disadvantages to choosing to build a static site.

Static Site Advantages
Flexibility
The main advantage of a static site is the flexibility it offers. Every page can be different; designs can change, layouts can differ, and the designer doesn’t have to make one design fit the mold for multiple types of content to display on a page.

Cost
Cost can be lower upfront to build a static site than to build a dynamic site. Since pages don’t have to be connected to a database to generate content and render the view, they can be less expensive than a dynamic site to build. However, hooking up a headless CMS to a static site generator and then a delivery network can make a static site expensive to build.

Load Times
Since static sites are pre-rendered, the load times are very fast. Without complex scripting, a database, parsing content through templating languages, etc. these sites typically load in a snap.

Static Site Disadvantages
More Difficult to Update
Static sites can be challenging to change once they’re built- even making small content tweaks can be challenging. Unless you are familiar with HTML, CSS, and the code of the site, you may have to ask your developer who originally built the site to make changes to the site for you.

More Difficult to Scale
Adding to a static site over time can also be more difficult than with a dynamic site. For instance, creating product pages means that you have to construct a new page every time you want to add a new product page, which can take time and incur ongoing maintenance costs.