Web Topology

What is web topology? According to the dictionary it is the topographical study of the properties of the internet. Similarly when we analyze the web we need to know about the properties that affect the mechanism of the World Wide Web. Web as a virtual world is much different from the real world as working in web is application based. Hence, the visualization of web is more of depicting the application working process.

The internet is a world created with number of machines, networks and users. In this world everyone is sharing information with each other. Machines that constitute the internet are called ‘Hosts”. Host can be anything – mainframes, workstations, desktop personal computers, laptops, minicomputers and vast parallel processing supercomputers. To map the web topology, we need to map the communication process among the hosts.

No one really owns the internet. Internet began its journey from 1969 onwards and from four hosts the number has reached tens of millions. The Internet Society, founded in 1992, basically formulates the standards of internet, education and policies around the world.

Suppose person X in the US sends a mail to person Z of a particular University in Australia. From his home, X dials up his 2400bps line to a workstation of his University, types his message and sends it. The workstation via a 2mbps connection sends the mail to JVC net (a popular Internet Service Provider or ISP). Thereby a connection is established between X’s desired University in Australia via a communication satellite. Then another communication satellite delivers the mail to the workstation of his desired University. Z dials up to the University host and accepts the mail.

The above mentioned example gives just a little insight into web topology.

The hosts are assigned unique names so that one host is properly identified from another. The technology used is Domain Name System or DNS. No two domain name are same. Domain names are assigned via unique machine number. First the DNS and Internet Protocol (IP) are resolved then the identifiable name appears. For Google.com, the IP of 64.233.187.99 is resolved first before displaying www.google.com in the address bar of the browser. However, the “localhost” is always assigned with IP: 127.0.0.1. Localhost is a special IP address, hence, the IP of 127.0.0.1 always stays same no matter where the computer is in the world.