Web Application Development With ASP - Building Blocks of Web Application

The building blocks of an web application includes.

1. A Web Server

2. Server Side Scripting Pages

3. Database and SQL

I will be covering a brief overview of the role of each of these building blocks so that you will have a clear picture how each of them plays a part in a web application.

A Web Server

The web server plays a critical role in an web application. It hosts the web directory, handles the requests by clients, processes the server side scripting and returns an output to the client. The web servers also acts as the front line defends against attacks to prevent any compromising of the databases. As such other supporting softwares are included into the server.

Depending on the type of server end scripting used, the web server will need to run different "engine" to be able to read those scripts. For example, you can run an Apache to read php scripts or java scripts and for ASP or ASP.Net you will need an IIS, Internet Information Services for your server.

Server Side Scripting

Server side scripting are scripts that are run at the back-end, by a web server. The other scripting language is run at the client's PC itself, example are html, vbscript and javascript.

There are many server side scripting which includes php, java, perl, ASP, C# and of course ASP and ASP.Net. All these scripts are written by web application developer, like myself, to perform specific functions, example a guest book or a shopping cart. This the "brain" of the whole web application where it will direct actually how things should works and flow... which data to extract, insert, edit or delete. Security checks, password authenication and many other processes like exceptions handling must be included in these scripts to ensure the integrity of the application and databases.

I will be covering the ASP scripting language in my furture postings.

Databases and SQL

A database completes the whole picture for an web application. It holds data and information of the business processes. At anytime, the integrity and the security of the databases should never be compromised. SQL are used to manipulate data. If you are familar to SQL queries it will be a plus for you.

A simple database can be created by using Microsoft Access, other database like mySQL which is free is well like by many web developers. So the choice of a database really depend on preferences, cost and the size of the database. For a beginner I would recommend, MS Access which is readily available and easy to implement.