Describe principal components of E commerce infrastructure
Description of the Main Components of E-commerce Infrastructure
Internet:
Internet is the abbreviation of interconnect network. It is a network of thousands of networks and millions of computers through which businesses, educational institutions, government agencies, and individuals can communicate or connect.
Internet provides various services to about 2.56 billion users in the world. Among them, the web is one of the most popular services, which displays various audio, video, animation, graphics, and text through web pages created by HTML. Currently, there is no accurate information on how many web pages there are. However, it is estimated that more than a trillion web pages exist on the Internet. Apart from that, web pages provide services like e-mail, apps, music, video, and news. Web pages are accessed with browsing software like Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera Mini, etc.
TCP/IP:
Transmission Control Protocol (TCP/IP) is an Internet communication protocol, that is, the specific rules of communication between computers or other devices connected to the Internet. TCP/IP defines how devices connected to the Internet will exchange information or communicate with each other.
TCP/IP performs different functions in four different layers. The network interface layer performs data packet addressing and packet delivery through data encapsulation. The Internet layer performs routing and packing. The transport layer receives packets from the application layer and sends them to other devices. The application layer provides the interface and performs various functions at the lower level, such as resource sharing, file sharing, directories, etc.
Function and Operation of Routers:
Routers determine which path to reach another network and inform the discovered path. To determine which path to send data to another network, the router uses two types of methods: static routing and dynamic routing. Regardless of which routing method is used, it stores the information of the different paths discovered in the routing table. Whenever e-commerce and CMS need to send data to another network, the router checks whether there is a route specified in the routing table to reach that network.
Usually, a relative value is given for each path, which is called cost. The router will use the path that has the lowest cost to send data packets.
- (a) Using different network addresses for each port.
- (b) Build routing tables based on network addresses.
- (c) Does not allow broadcast traffic to pass through.
- (d) Do not allow data packets of unknown addresses to pass through.
- (e) Adds a new header to the data frame.
- (f) The data frame must reach the router before the traffic is sent to the other end.
IP Address:
An IP address is a numerical label assigned to each device connected to a computer network. The main functions of an Internet Protocol address are:
- (i) To identify the host or network interface.
- (ii) To find the location of the network interface.
The IP addressing scheme facilitates communication between billions of devices connected to the Internet.
DNS:
DNS stands for Domain Name System. It translates numeric IP addresses into natural language. For example, the IP address of http://www.facebook.com is 31.13.71.36. Instead of remembering 31.13.71.36, DNS simplifies the task by allowing the use of the domain name.
URL:
The full name of URL is Uniform Resource Locator. A URL is the address used by a web browser to identify the location of a piece of content on the Internet. For example, https://dimikoj.com/problems is the URL of a problem-solving website in Bengali. When a user sends an HTTP request with that URL, the server responds by providing the requested content.
Internet Servers and Clients:
Client-Server Computing is a model where servers and personal computers (clients) are connected via a network. A client is a networked personal computer, while a server responds to client requests and provides services. Dedicated servers only act as servers, while non-dedicated servers can act as both servers and clients.
Email Protocols:
Different protocols are used for email. Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) is used to send mail to the server. Post Office Protocol (POP) or Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) is used to retrieve mail from the client computer. IMAP allows users to search, organize, and sort mail before downloading.
Ports and HTTP:
Servers use multiple ports to provide services. For example, a web server uses port 80, and an FTP server uses port 21. Clients connect to the server through the specific port designated for the service, using appropriate protocols such as HTTP for web servers.