Before investigating web-based applications that you can develop with SNA Server, it is important to understand the nature of the web’s client/server architecture and why it is well-suited for enterprise networking.
Web architecture is different from other client/server architectures because it was designed to use a web browser—a simple client application.
Web browsers interpret the HTML data streams that define web pages and display them within the browser window. The content displayed in web pages can be stored as a series of static files on a web server, or be generated dynamically using a program that communicates with the web server through a standard interface. Although users interact with web pages by clicking on links and buttons to navigate to other pages, input can also be collected through forms and submitted to the services that communicate with the web server for further processing.
Each web server operates independently and can connect to other web servers both on a corporate network—frequently called an intranet—or on the Internet. Web content can also link to information located on other web servers; in many cases, a user will not know (or care to know) which server is providing the web content. It is this characteristic that makes "web surfing" a seamless experience for the user.