Wednesday, 17 October 2012

Difference B/W Web server & Web services

Web server
Web services
Every Web site sits on a computer known as a Web server. This server is always connected to the internet. Every Web server that is connected to the Internet is given a unique address made up of a series of four numbers between 0 and 256 separated by periods. For example, 68.178.157.132 or 68.122.35.127.
A web service is an online service that you own or take on rent.
A "web server" is a server application (like Microsoft IIS or Apache) which is used to compile and run websites, or "web application". A "web server" can host some "web services" too.
A web-service is the mechanism through which the web-server understands a request from a client and in turn reacts to it.  Web services are more intended to
be application components or "libraries", which can be used by other applications.

Type of web servers:  Shared,  Virtual Private Server (VPS), Managed Private Server (MPS), Dedicated Server, Free Server, Reseller Hosting Server.
Web service refers to an API that could be invoked over standard web protocols. There are two types of webservice  (in Microsoft land): WCF and asmx. WCF services are "hosted" by IIS, asmx webservices run within IIS.
A web server is a program that serves content (HTML, images, etc) to browsers, i.e. to be read by humans. It receives requests and sends back an answer that can be an HTML page or anything else
There won't necessarily be a human at the other end who can figure out through trial and error what the app does. This is why the whole concept of "web services" has brought a whole new set of acronyms such as SOAP, UDDI, etc. In order to respond to the request web services can use any data format they want (as long as both sides agree), but typically something like XML (specifically SOAP or so) or JSON is used.
Web Server is a piece of software that run on a physical or virtual machine and necessarily need to be HTTP protocol.  It accepts HTTP requests and responds by giving HTTP responses.
As the protocol may not be HTTP, you may provide Web Services over mail or other protocols, and you do not need a web server for that. The transport channel used by Web Services doesn't necessarily need to be the HTTP protocol.
A web server is designed to serve the web pages/web sites/web services.
A web service runs on a web server. If you want your Web service to be accessed over the internet using HTTP protocol, you'll set it up on a Web Server.

No comments:

Post a Comment