Tracing the Journey of a Web Request: From Domain Name to Displayed Webpage

When you type https://www.google.com into your web browser and press Enter, a series of events is triggered that eventually leads to the webpage being displayed on your screen.

First, the browser sends a Domain Name System (DNS) request to a DNS server to resolve the domain name, www.google.com, into an IP address. This is necessary because computers communicate with each other using IP addresses, not domain names. The DNS server responds with the IP address of a server that is likely to have the requested webpage.

Next, the browser establishes a Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) connection with the server using the resolved IP address. TCP/IP is a set of protocols that govern the transmission of data over the internet.

Before the server can respond to the request, it must first pass through any firewall filters that are in place. A firewall is a security system that controls incoming and outgoing network traffic based on predetermined security rules.

If the request is allowed through the firewall, it is then sent to a load balancer, which is a device that distributes incoming requests among multiple servers to optimize resource usage and maximize throughput. The load balancer routes the request to a specific web server.

The web server receives the request and determines which application server should handle it. An application server is a software framework that provides the business logic for an application. It is responsible for processing the request and generating a response.

The application server may need to retrieve data from a database in order to generate the response. A database is a collection of data organized in a specific way, allowing for efficient search and retrieval of information.

Once the application server has generated the response, it is sent back to the web server, which then sends it back to the browser through the load balancer and firewall.

Finally, the browser receives the response and renders the webpage for the user to view.

It's important to note that all of this happens over a secure connection, indicated by the "https" in the URL. HTTPS, or HTTP Secure, is a protocol for securely transmitting data over the internet. It uses Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) or Transport Layer Security (TLS) to encrypt the data and prevent it from being intercepted by third parties.

In summary, when you type https://www.google.com into your web browser and press Enter, a series of events is triggered that involves DNS resolution, TCP/IP communication, firewall filtering, load balancing, web and application server processing, and possibly database interaction, all in order to deliver the requested webpage to your browser over a secure connection.