Web Domains (Part 1: High Level Concepts of the Internet)

Alright squad, this one is going to be a bit more technical, so let's get prepared for it. We're going to dive into the networking first principles that most of the internet is based off of. We won't get incredibly deep, but we'll be touching some key aspects that are often over-complicated and attempt to simplify them. The intent is to demystify the elements in a more common language so that we lower the barrier of entry and lift the gate for newcomers. We'll break this up into multiple parts so that we don't hammer you with too much information all at once. Also, I'm strongly against the use of custom non-common acronyms because I believe in cognitive simplicity and like to reduce cognitive overhead. If you want to read more about what those terms mean I suggest this article. I will only use acronyms that are useful and common. The ones used in this article are:

1. Points of Interest (POI)
2. Global Positioning System (GPS)
3. Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4)
4. Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6)
5. Internet Protocol (IP)
6. Domain Naming System (DNS)
7. Internet Service Provider (ISP)
8. Uniform Resource Locator (URL)

We want to be comprehensive, and we want to use analogies that can be understood by most people because of their physical experience with the world around them. Often times the speech used for these concepts is too narrow to easily grasp the knowledge possessed within. We're going to attempt to broaden it so that anyone can believe that they're capable of becoming a web developer, which I strongly believe to be true. We'll be discussing the computer and groups of computers using analogies involving humans, communication, cars/boats/trains/planes, roads, and houses/buildings/POI. Basically, computer logistics follow human logistics in a large way. There will definitely be gaps even in this attempted explanation so you'll need to be able to use your creative imagination to be able to follow along. I am not claiming that all of these things possess the same exact characteristics, but I am claiming that the shared characteristics in these elements help us understand how things work together. So let's get to it!

Starting off, let's breakdown what a computer is in some simple high level terms. It is a machine that is able to store and process instructions rapidly and in a predictable manner. You tell it to do something in a way that it understands, and it will do it the same way every time (more or less true depending on how new the device is). It is a singular device that has physical boundaries associated with it. Just look at your phone, laptop, or desktop PC. They have physical boundaries that contain that memory for storage and processing capability, and they need electrical power in order to operate. You must either have a rechargeable battery in it that allows it to operate without being plugged in, or you will need it to be plugged in directly to a power outlet. In our day, most people rarely interact with these machines without a screen and input method like a keyboard+mouse (or touch pad), or through a touch screen. We call the interaction method with the device the interface to the device.

To help understand that, the interface that you use to operate your car (with an automatic transmission) in the basic terms are the ignition switch/button that requires some form of key, the steering wheel, the brake pedal, and the gas pedal. The rest of the options are somewhat superfluous to actually moving the vehicle but they're still important for communicating with other vehicles, and for ease of use of your own. However, the car won't run unless you have fuel in it (gas or electric), the key to start it up, and actually provide inputs to the interface to move it, slow it down/stop it, and steer it.

Describing a computer that way, you can see that it has memory, it can process what it contains in memory, and that it must be given input to these things for it to do anything. Just like the car, we don't need to understand every portion of how it's operating under the hood for us to be able to interact with it in a way that's useful to us. With the car, it can store and shelter what it contains (ourselves and our stuff), and it can also transport those items. With the computer it stores, shelters, processes information, but it can also transfer that information to other computers. In both scenarios, you only need a single one to store and shelter the contents, but you need multiple to make larger scale things happen.

Let's expand on this and start including the roadways and the buildings/houses. In order for the car to get anywhere efficiently it needs to know where it's coming from, where it's going, and needs to have a pathway to get there. The roads are the pathways and they have names/directions associated with them. The buildings/houses/POI are the locations and they have addresses that describe them. Which region of the world they are in, which pathway they're on, and at which point on that pathway you'll find them.

Time to expand just a little bit further. All of this requires communication to the human, you, to provide you with the method to follow the path to its end. Long ago, before we starting drawing pictures and writing things down, you would need to be told by a fellow human where to find the water and food. What dangers lie along the way, what mistakes they've made in discovery, and how long the journey would take. To reduce the amount of time the describing human needed to use in order to share this information with you, humans created artifacts that would eliminate the need for verbal communication. We started creating maps that would handle those details for us so that we could use our time for other things. Nowadays, all of this happens digitally and in an instant. Not only can we look up the place we're looking for, but we can also be guiding there each step of the way with a dedicated GPS device or the GPS application on your mobile device.

Computer networks were built on all of these same principles. The computers must have a way of reaching each other with information in order to display and handle the applications that manage our social lives, studies, finances, insurance, entertainment, business, etc.. They do so by sending and receiving information much like we send and receive ourselves/things with vehicles around our world. They have pathways that connect them together, and they have addresses that specify their locations. The computers communicate with each other on basically an advanced, hyper-quick version of Morse code. The dots and dashes in Morse code were high and low voltage signals being sent over a wire, and the computer sends those same high and low voltage signals in certain coded patterns to each other. That's how they communicate. The pathways are very similar to our world's pathways as well, but they have more flexibility because information can be sent via radio and electromagnetic waves wirelessly as well as on the wire. The wired connections are like the roadway systems we have, and the wireless connections are the offroad vehicles like jeeps, dirtbikes, boats, and aerial vehicles such as planes and helicopters.

So how does all this tie into web domains? Well, the web domain is the human readable internet address for an internet presence, and it is managed by a system known as the Domain Naming Service (DNS). The actual computer addresses that network devices use for network traffic follow IPv4 and IPv6 (Internet Protocols version 4 and 6), and are the currently used Internet Protocol versions that handle internet addressing. The internet presence that you have is basically your digital sanctuary which you should have full control over managing. You can do it all via physical devices in a physical space that you own or rent, or you can manage it all virtually via rented devices through cloud internet providers (companies that let you rent out computing resources and manage their connecting network). The former requires a deep mastery of computer networking and will demand administration of at least one networking device and at least one computer. Plus, the former may leave you with troubles interacting with your chosen Internet Service Provider (ISP). The latter is currently the popular demand and most businesses are rapidly adopting it. The cloud management of your web domain involves understanding the principles that you would use to physically manage your domain also. The difference is that you will need to translate it to what the cloud provider decides their naming structure for the same concepts will be. They all distinguish themselves by providing their own flavor of the real juice of what's happening to avoid boring their customers, but to me, it just makes it all very confusing.

Those details in the last paragraph are what we want to dive into with more depth. Demystifying what each of those concepts are, and especially applying it to managing your web domain with a cloud internet provider. Over the next few articles we'll discuss DNS management companies, uniform resource locators (URLS), networking protocols, cloud internet providers, and the concepts involved therein. To avoid information overload, we'll stop Part 1 here, and move into Part 2 to begin explaining those concepts. Hope you enjoyed this one! Get excited for more! :)

Cheers,

DaSeventhHogie