Almost everyone has heard of a web server, but most people do not really know what they are! In a sense, a spider is a web server, but it's not the kind of web server, we have in mind. This article explains in simple terms, what a web server is and explains why they are so important to the function of modern Web sites. The most common type in use today is probably Apache. It is a software application but it runs on a physical hardware device (or server). So when someone talks about a web server they usually mean the hardware device and software running on it. Lets see how these servers generally work:

* First you enter the address of a webpage in your browser, that Amazon or eBay
* Your browser sends a page request to the web server to the address you provided (its like a street address)
* Server intercepts your Amazon or eBay page request
* If the server stores the page you requested then it will return the page to your browser
* You see the page you requested in your browser appear like magic :-)


The description above is a simplified explaination of a web server, but it does the job of explaining how they work. But lets look at a more complex scenario. It is when the server is sitting in front of many other servers. The reason is that if a website gets a lot of traffic (which we all want) then, a if a single server is used it will quickly get overworked and grind to a stop. This can lead potentional viewers to go else where in search of products which can loose you money. However, if there are many servers they can meet very high demand, it is unlikely that any one server will get overworked. The key is to ensure that applications are shared among the available servers. This has been where our web server comes to the rescue again. A single server sitting in front of other servers (or back-end servers) can intercept our page requests, and instead of trying to do all the work while sharing applications with other servers that are contrary to all the work involved in his return to the page you requested (this is called load balancing). This in turn causes Internet glad we usually get a prompt response to our request page.

So from the above, you can see that web servers are an important part of the modern Internet, particularly when we are load balanced and provide prompt responses to our requests and page requests.