The Digital Research Initiative

Important stuff

Before being able to fully appreciate the info in this site, one must first have a good understanding of the "client-server" model of networking.

Almost all computer networks everywhere, particularly the Internet, are based on the client-server model. In this model, a "client" is a computer which gets an information service from another computer, who as the giver of a service, is the "server."

Everything relates to food

A real-world metaphor for this situation is going to a restuarant. If you are the customer, then you will be the one receiving the service, which is a meal in this case. The restaurant is the one providing the service. This makes you the client and the restaurant a server.

Now, there will need to be some effort on your part. You will need to seek out the restaurant, go to it, and then order your meal. In the last task, you had to provide a service of sorts to your server.

Now the restuarant faces a larger task than you do. It should have acquired the materials for your meal, and will need to prepare the meal. This will take a manager or two, along with a cook or chef and a waitstaff. The restaurant will need to have many more resources than you have.

What does have to do with my computer?

Just like a customer in a restaurant, your computer needs its "food," which for a computer is information. A "server" is another computer, usually one much more powerful than the normal home computer, which provides the information/food to your computer, the "client."

Just like in the above situation, your computer as client must provide some small bits of information to the server. It must "order" what it wants from the server. Also, the server has to have the resources to provide this information, not only to your computer, but possibly to several hundred at a time, just like a popular restaurant.

Therefore, generally the server computer will be quite large and powerful, and capable of addressing several requests at once. It will generally have a huge capacity to communicate with the outside world, while your home computer may on be able to send and receive a few kilobytes per second. Also, in order to have all the information a client could possibly want, the server probably have a huge amoung of storage ability, along with the programs necessary to "serve" this information to the clients."

Is that all?

Not quite. So that the server will understand your computer's information requests/orders, your computer will have to speak the proper "language." You can't walk into McDonald's and order in Latin can you? Of course not.

Computer networks work because computers can communicate using standard languages, or "protocols." These protocols allow information transactions to happen between all kinds of different computers. It doesn't matter if a PC asks a Macintosh for data, so long as the two utilize a common protocol.

The Internet is the world's largest network. In fact, it is a network made up of thousands of smaller networks. There are millions of servers, and even more clients, and sometimes, computers can be both. When you visit a Website, your computer is receiving data from a server, and when you check your email, your computer is also receiving data from a server.

This site made by

This site was created especially for students of the UNC School of Journalism's
JOMC 050 Class, and anyone else who may be interested.
For more information, please contactdaikat@email.unc.edu