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Proceed Cautiously To Browser / Server
Source: Newsbytes News Published: Oct 1996
A new computing architecture that might be called “browser/server computing” is emerging. It will not replace the client/server model we know today, and it is still untested and may not work very well, but forward-thinking companies should be exploring it cautiously, said George Schussel, founder and chief executive of Digital Consulting Inc., during his company’s Internet Expo conference in Toronto Tuesday.
Delivering a keynote address, the Andover, Massachusetts-based consultant said using Internet technology as the protocol linking clients to servers makes good sense in a number of ways. It reduces cost, and it simplifies dealings with a variety of hardware clients because the application need only be concerned with the Web browser, which is relatively standardized.
Schussel traced the history of client/server computing back to the file server model, in which virtually all work was done on the client, while the server was just a place to store data in files that had to be downloaded to the client for use. This led to the two-tier client/server model, which put a proper database server with record locking and such features in place of the simple file server.
Then in the past two years came three-tier client/server, using an application server separate from the database server and relying on the client only for the presentation logic.
Schussel said the browser/server model closely resembles this third model, except that the protocol used to link client and servers is Internet technology — either the public Internet or an internal intranet.
