Introduction to Internet and

World Wide Web

Lecturer: David Marangu

EMAIL: [email protected]
Contents of this lesson
1.1 What is Internet?
1.2 History and Development of the Internet
1.3 Internet Standards & Coordination
1.4 Anatomy of the Internet
1.5 Bacis Internet Protocols
1.6 Technologies/Tools of the Internet
1.7 World Wide Web
 1.1 What is Internet?
l The Internet, sometimes called simply "the Net," is a worldwide
system of computer networks - a network of networks in which
users at any one computer can, if they have permission, get
information from any other computer (and sometimes talk
directly to users at other computers).
l Originally the Internet served to interconnect laboratories
engaged in government research, and since 1994 it has been
expanded to serve millions of users and a multitude of
purposes in all parts of the world.
l In a matter of very few years, the Internet has consolidated
itself as a very powerful platform that has changed the way we
do business, and the way we communicate.
1.1 What is Internet?

l The Internet, as no other communication medium, has given an

International or, if you prefer, a "Globalized" dimension to the world.

l Internet has become the Universal source of information for millions of

people, at home, at school, and at work.

l Internet is actually the most democratic of all the mass media. With a
very low investment, anyone can have a web page in Internet.

l This way, almost any business can reach a very large market, directly,
fast and economically, no matter the size or location of the business.

l With a very low investment, almost anybody that can read and write can
have access to the World Wide Web.
1.2 History and Development of the Internet

l It was conceived by the Advanced Research Projects Agency

(ARPA) of the U.S. government in 1969 and was first known as
the ARPANet.

l The original aim was to create a network that would allow users
of a research computer at one university to be able to "talk to"
research computers at other universities.

l In time, ARPANET computers were installed at every university

in the United States that had defense related funding.

l Gradually, the Internet had gone from a military pipeline to a

communications tool for scientists.

l As more scholars came online, the administration of the system

transferred from ARPA to the National Science Foundation.
1.2 History and Development of the Internet

Brief History of the Internet

l 1960 - US government seeks nuclear war proof

communications, briefs project to APRA
l 1968 - DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency) contracts with BBN (Bolt, Beranek &
Newman) to create ARPAnet
l 1969 - Birth of Internet. Universities and researches
connected to ARPAnet.
l 1970 - First five nodes:
§ UCLA; - Stanford; - UC Santa Barbara
§ University of Utah, and BBN
1.2 History and Development of the Internet

l ARPANET
l Implemented in late 1960’s by ARPA (Advanced Research
Projects Agency of DOD)

l Networked computer systems of a dozen universities and

institutions with 56KB communications lines

l Grandparent of today’s Internet

l Intended to allow computers to be shared

l Became clear that key benefit was allowing fast

communication between researchers – electronic-mail (email)
1.2 History and Development of the Internet

Brief History of the Internet

l 1971 - Ray Tomlinson creates first network email application.

§ E-mail - a program to send messages across a distributed
network.
l 1972 – Telnet - Computers can connect more freely and easily
l 1973 – FTP - computers send and receive data.
l 1974 - TCP specification by Vint Cerf
l 1977 - ARPAnet engineers realise the network is going to grow
beyond expectations
l 1983 - ARPAnet switched NCP to TCP/IP
l 1984 - Domain Name System (DNS) was introduced.
l 1989 - Tim Berners-Lee proposes a new set of Internet protocols
l 1991 - World-Wide Web - developed released by CERN; within the
UK academic network.
l 1992/93 - Mosaic/Netscape - User Friendly Graphical Front
l 1995 - US government releases Internet for commercial use
1.3 Internet Standards & Coordination

l ICANN - The Internet Corporation for Assigned

Numbers & Names
l Non-profit organization
l Main function is to coordinate the assignment of:
l Internet domain names

l IP address numbers

l Protocol parameters

l Protocol port numbers.

1.3 Internet Standards & Coordination

l Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)

l http://www.ietf.org/

l Founded 1986

l Request For Comments (RFC) at

http://www.ietf.org/rfc.html
l W3C – World Wide Web Consortium
l Develops recommendations and prototype
technologies related to the Web
l Produces specifications, called Recommendations,
in an effort to standardize web technologies
1.4 Anatomy of the Internet

•
Internet Backbone
A high capacity communication link that carries data
gathered from smaller links that interconnect with it.

•
NAP – Network Access Point
Access points or junctions to the Internet
Backbone in major cities.
1.4 Anatomy of the Internet

l Client/Server can describe a relationship between two

computer programs – the "client" and the "server".
l Client
l requests some type of service (such as a file or database
access) from the server.
l Server
l fulfills the request and transmits the results to the client
over a network
l The Internet Client/Server Model
l Client -- Web Browser
l Server -- Web Server
1.4 Anatomy of the Internet

l Web Client
l Connected to the Internet when needed
l Usually runs web browser (client) software such as Internet
Explorer or Netscape
l Uses HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol)
l Connect to a web server using URL information
l Requests web pages from server
l Receives web pages and files from server
l Display the formatted information
1.4 Anatomy of the Internet

l Web Server
l Continually connected to the Internet
l Runs web server software (such as Apache or Internet
Information Server)
l Uses HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol)
l Receives request for the web page
l Responds to request and transmits status code, web
page, and associated files
1.5 Basic Internet Protocols
l Protocols : rules that describe the methods used for
clients and servers to communicate with each other
over a network.

l There is no single protocol that makes the Internet

and Web work. A number of protocols with specific
functions are needed.
1.5 Basic Internet Protocols

l FTP (File Transfer Protocol)

l A set of rules that allow files to be exchanged between
computers on the Internet.
l Web developers commonly use FTP to transfer web page
files from their computers to web servers.
l FTP is also used to download programs and files from other
servers to individual computers.

l E-mail Protocols
l Sending E-mail
l SMTP Simple Mail Transfer Protocol

l Receiving E-mail
l POP (POP3) Post Office Protocol
l IMAP Internet Mail Access Protocol
 1.5 Basic Internet Protocols

l Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol

TCP/IP
l TCP/IP has been adopted as the official
communication protocol of the Internet.
TCP and IP have different functions that work
together to ensure reliable communication over
the Internet.
1.5 Basic Internet Protocols

l Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)

l Purpose is to ensure the integrity of communication
l Breaks files and messages into individual units called
packets

l Internet Protocol (IP)

l A set of rules that controls how data is sent between
computers on the Internet.
l IP routes a packet to the correct destination address.
l The packet gets successively forwarded to the next closest
router (a hardware device designed to move network traffic)
until it reaches its destination.
1.5 Basic Internet Protocols

l HTTP - Hypertext Transfer Protocol

l A set of rules for exchanging files such as text, graphic images,
sound, video, and other multimedia files on the Web.

HTTP Request

HTTP Response

l Web browsers send HTTP requests for web pages and their
associated files.
l Web servers send HTTP responses back to the web browsers.
1.6 Technologies/Tools of the Internet

l World Wide Web: a branch of the Internet that provides access to

hyperlinked information.

l E-mail: electronic message containing information sent from one

computer to another over networks.

l Listservs/mailing lists: a facility that allows participation in ongoing

discussions via e-mail.

l Usenet Newsgroups and discussion groups: world-wide distributed

system of online discussion groups in which people continuously
participate. Newsgroups allow people with a common interest to
subscribe to one or more groups for posting, reading and replying
to electronic mail.
1.6 Technologies/Tools of the Internet

l Internet Relay Chat and web chatting: having a conversation with many
people on a variety of topics in real time. All the parties to the
conversation are participating simultaneously regardless of the time zone
they are in.

l Channels: Channels on the web are a pre-selected information source

that can send information to your computer automatically according to a
predetermined
schedule.

l FTP: File Transfer Protocol allows you to copy files from one computer
connected to the Internet to another computer connected to the Internet.
It allows you to download information, upload web pages and transfer
information between computers.

l Telnet: The Telnet protocol is an application that allows a remote

connection to another computer.
1.6 Technologies/Tools of the Internet

l Intranet: are private networks that help an organization to share

information between departments, units and regions across a
network

l Internet Phone: allows one to put a number of calls on the same line
without sacrificing sound quality.

l Video Conferencing: allows you to chat with one or more people in

real time and/or to see live images as you speak or type.

l Blogs: Blogs or web logs are personal web pages that contain
personal thoughts and links to other sites that are of particular
interest to a blog owner.

l Wikis: Wikis are collaborative websites where the community

participate in writing a publication, like an encyclopaedia or a general
purpose website.
1.7 World Wide Web (WWW)
Development of the Web
l 1989-1991: Web invented by Tim Berners-Lee at European
Physics Laboratory (CERN).

l 1993: Marc Andreesen and others at NCSA create Mosaic,

a Web browser with a graphical user interface that could
run on Windows, Macintosh, or Unix computer.

l 1994: Andreesen and Jim Clark found Netscape, and

create first commercial Web browser, Netscape Navigator.

l August 1995: Microsoft introduces its version of Web

browser, Internet Explorer.
1.7 World Wide Web (WWW)

l What is WWW?
l is a way of accessing information over the medium of the Internet.

l is one of the major services of the internet who hosts information of

almost about anything one might like to search for.

l computer network consisting of a collection of Internet sites that

offer text and graphics and sound, video and animation resources
through the hypertext transfer protocoll.

l The Web uses the HTTP protocol, only one of the languages spoken
over the Internet, to transmit data. Web services, which use HTTP to
allow applications to communicate in order to exchange business logic,
use the Web to share information.
l The Web also utilizes browsers, such as Internet Explorer or Firefox, to
access Web documents called Web pages that are linked to each
other via hyperlinks.
1.7 World Wide Web (WWW)

l Web Browsers

l a programme used to locate, display, browse and view

information on a website.

l when you request a web page by entering the URL in the

location field of the browser, the browser contacts the
web server and asks for a copy of the page. The browser
displays the page when it arrives.

l a browser can be text based in which case you would

only be able to view web pages in text mode or could
have a graphical user interface in which case you would
be able to view the web page in graphical mode.
1.7 World Wide Web (WWW)

l Web Addresses

l Each Web page has a unique address called the Uniform

Resource Locator (URL).

l The URL tells the computer how and where to look for a
document.

l Example: http://www.cnn.com/world/index.html

l The hypertext links are attached to Web addresses.

1.7 World Wide Web (WWW)

l Web Pages
l A Web page is a file on the Web.
l A Web site is a collection of Web pages maintained by a
college, government agency, company or individual.
l A Web page is created by using a computer language
called Hypertext Markup Language (HTML).
l HTML is a set of codes used to format Web pages and
create links.
1.7 World Wide Web (WWW)
l Hypertext
l Web pages are hypertext documents.
l A hypertext document is one that contains highlighted text or links
that connect to other pages on the Web.
l Highlighted means that the text is usually underlined and displayed
in a different color than the ssurrounding text. Graphics can also be
links. You simply point to and click on the text with your mouse to
follow that link.
l By clicking on the hypertext link you can go to another Web page
on the same computer, or a Web page on a computer across the
world.
l The Web uses a protocol called Hypertext Transfer Protocol
(HTTP) to transfer documents containing hypertext.
l HTTP's job is similar to that of TCP/IP. HTTP and TCP/IP, both
protocols, or standards, tell computers how to communicate
with each other.