A Web server is a process running on the operating system, which enables users to access Web pages by using a browser. When a user requests a browser for files, text, and images, the browser sends the request over the Internet to remote computers. The web server software that runs on the remote computers sends the requested data back to the browser.

Example of web server software applications are: National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), Apache, IIS, Netscape Enterprise Server, Novell Web Server, and others.

Intorducing Internet Information Server

Internet Information Server (IIS) is a web Server from Microsoft Inc., which provides a highly realible, manageable, and scalable Web application infrastructure. This Web Server is a group of Web services. IIS help host web sites and make applications available without increasing system administration costs.

IIS provides many Web services, which are :

• WWW service : The WWW service enable users to establish multiple Web sites on a single Web server. The integration of the WWW service with IIS provides a high level of security, better performance, and standards-based publishing protocols.
  

• File Transfer Protocol (FTP) Service : The FTP service enables users to set up FTP sites for uploading and donwloading files.
  

• Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) Service : The SMTP service enables users to send and receive e-mail messages over the Internet.
  

• Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP) Service : The NNTP service enables users to host electronic discussion groups or newsgroups.
  

• Front Page Server Extensions : Front Page Server Extensions enable user to create and edit HTML pages for a Web site directly on a server computer.
  

• Common Gateway Interface (CGI) and Internet Server Application Programming Interface (ISAPI) : CGI and ISAP are programming interfaces that enables client/server applications over the Internet.