The structure of the Internet: the basic principles of work

Today, nobody surprises the Internet. Access to this network is carried out daily by a huge number of users. According to the data of 2015, the number of connected users exceeded 3.3 billion. True, not everyone knows what the structure of information resources of the Internet is in terms of technology. Most, in general, it is not necessary. However, the foundations laid down in the principles of the functioning of the World Wide Web, even at an initial level, still need to know.

What is the Internet in a modern interpretation ?

In general, when it comes to the modern Internet, quite often, instead, the concept of the World Wide Web or the Web, which combines computers from all over the world, is used.

In general, it is true, but here it is necessary to make one clarification. As you know, no computer directly connects to the Internet, only through a service provider, to which is connected, God knows how many other terminals or mobile devices. It turns out that they are all united into one network. And in this sense the Internet is called a "network of networks".

Indeed, the structure of the Internet is built on a network, so to speak, subnets and has a high-tech hierarchy. In addition, access to a particular resource can not be imagined without a router, which is able to choose the optimal path for accelerated access to a given resource.

And that's interesting. The Internet as such has no owner, and the network itself is rather a virtual space, which every day affects the person more and more, sometimes even replacing reality. It's bad or good, do not judge us. But let us dwell on the main aspects of the construction and functioning of the World Wide Web.

The structure of the global Internet network: the history of the emergence and development

As we know it today, the Internet was not always there. If you dig into history, it should be noted that the first attempts to create a single information network that could not only transfer data, but also serve as a kind of "translator" of a variety of programming languages for the perception of information, were made back in 1962, at the very The height of the Cold War between the US and the USSR. Then the program on the basis of the theory of switching of packages for data transfer of Leonard Klejnroka supervised by Joseph Liklajdera also has appeared. The main direction was not only the transfer of information, but also its "indestructibility."

On the basis of these developments in 1969, the first network, called ARPANet, became the progenitor of the Internet, or the World Wide Web. In 1971, the first program for sending and receiving e-mail was developed, by 1973, when the Euro-Atlantic cable was continued, the network became international, in 1983 it switched to the unified TCP / IP protocol, in 1984 appeared the IRC technology, which allowed chatting . And only by 1989 in CERN the idea of creating a global web was ripe, which now is usually called the Internet. Of course, it was far from the model being used now, nevertheless some basic principles, which includes the structure of the Internet, and have remained unchanged.

Infrastructure of the World Wide Web

Now let's see how it was possible to unite individual computer terminals and networks on their basis into a single whole. A key principle was the use of packet data transmission using routing based on a universal protocol, which would be understandable to any machine. That is, the information is not represented as separate bits, bytes or symbols, but is transmitted as a formatted block (packet), which can contain sufficiently long combinations of different sequences.

However, the transmission itself does not happen in vain. At the same time, the hierarchical structure and resources of the Internet have several main levels:

• The backbone (a system of high-speed servers connected together).
• Large networks and access points connected to the main highway.
• Regional networks are ranked lower.
• Internet service providers providing access services (ISP).
• End users.

The structure of information on the Internet is such that the terminals on which it is stored are called servers, and the user (reading or receiving it, as well as sending back responses and streams) machines - workstations. The transmission of the same information, as already mentioned above, is carried out on the basis of routers. But such a scheme is presented solely for the sake of simplicity of understanding the question. In fact, everything is much more complicated.

Basic Protocols

Now we come to one of the key concepts, without which it is impossible to imagine what the structure of the Internet is. These are universal protocols. Today there are a lot of them, but the main thing for the Internet is TCP / IP.

At the same time, two terms must be clearly delineated. The IP (gateway) protocol is one of the means of routing, that is, it is solely responsible for the delivery of data packets, but in no way is responsible for the integrity and security of the transmitted information. TCP, on the contrary, is a means of providing a session connection between the sender and the receiver based on a logical connection between two points with the so-called guaranteed delivery of packets, and absolutely intact.

Today, TCP / IP is the de facto Internet standard, although there are many other protocols, such as UDP, ICMP and RIP, DNS and ARP, FTP, HTTP, NNTP and TELNET (application ), IGP, GGP and EGP (gateway), SMTP, POP3 and NFS (mail and file access protocols on remote terminals), etc.

Domain Name System

Separately, it should be noted the universal approach to access to resources. It is clear that writing a page address like 127.11.92.785 to get to the right resource is not so convenient (let alone remember all these combinations). Therefore, in due time, a unique domain name system was developed that allowed entering the address as we see it today (in English).

But even here there is its own hierarchy. It also distinguishes several levels. For example, international top-level domains include resources independent of the country identifier (GOV - governmental, COM - commercial, EDU - educational, NET - network, MIL - military, ORG - general organizational, not belonging to any of the above types) .

Next are the domain names of the resources in which the country identifier is explicitly specified. For example, US - USA, RU - Russia, UA - Ukraine, DE - Germany, UK - United Kingdom, etc. In addition, such domains have their own sub-levels like COM.UA, ORG.DE, etc. In its Queue, and here you can find a clearer binding on the levels below the rank (KIEV.UA, KIEV.COM.UA, etc.). In other words, when looking at the address, you can immediately determine not only the country, but also the territorial affiliation of the resource within it.

Basic Internet Services

As for the services that can be found on the Internet today, in their categories they are divided into e-mail, news and newsletters, file exchange networks, electronic payment systems, Internet radio and television, web forums, blogs, social networks, online stores And auctions, educational projects "Wiki", video and audio hosting, etc. Since recently, social networks have become the most popular, let us dwell on their structure.

Structure of social networks of the Internet

A common feature of such an online community is independence from territorial status or citizenship. Each user creates his own profile (image, place of residence on the Web, whatever you want to call it), and communication is carried out using the instant messaging system, but not via chat, but in private mode. With chat, you can only compare the comment system. In addition, any registered resident of such a community can leave so-called posts, share with the public some materials or links to other publications, etc.

The structure of the Internet is such that when using certain protocols, like TCP / IP and IRC, all this is done quite simply. The main condition is registration (creating a login and password for logging in), as well as specifying at least minimal information about yourself.

Not surprisingly, personal sites and chats slowly but confidently go into oblivion. Even once popular "callers" like ICQ or QIP do not stand any competition, because social networking opportunities are much greater.