Trends in Web servers

Web|web Service |web Server (author: Cao Wenrong, Weisen)





Currently, there are three main trends in the development of Web servers:





1. From HTML to XML (extensible Markup language-Extensible Markup Language)


HTML is called the "first generation Web Language", as the previous introduction, HTML as the Web development language, the development of Web applications has played a key role. But HTML has a fatal disadvantage: it is only suitable for people and computer communication, not for computer and computer communication. HTML defines how a document's content behaves through a lot of markup, which simply describes how to lay out text and graphics on a Web browser page, without describing the meaning of the information on the Internet, which is the most important content in Web applications. The text, graphic content that is displayed through HTML is easy to be understood, but it is not good for computer program to understand. In addition, another problem with HTML is that its collection of tags is fixed, users cannot add tags to their needs, and different browsers have different specs, so that our HTML Web pages can be properly displayed by all browsers, we can only create Web pages using the tags specified by the World Wide Web Consortium.





as I said before, the information that the Web server provides to the Web browser comes from a database with a certain structure, in the database, in order to retrieve and manage conveniently, the information according to its own meaning (such as name, age, work unit, etc.) is stored in the corresponding field, once the data is paged out, After the conversion of CGI, ASP, JSP, PHP into HTML, the original meaning can not be transferred to the HTML tags, users can not follow the meaning of the information to read. And, because of the different operating system and database, it is very difficult to understand each other's data format between different systems and application levels. This requires a new technology or standard to share the original data structures originally stored in the database server at different system levels. This new technology is XML.





Using XML can solve the above challenges. The consortium describes XML as follows: "XML describes a class of data objects called XML documents, and partly describes the behavior of the computer programs that handle them." XML is an application instance of SGML. Structurally, XML documents conform to SGML document standards. "XML, like HTML, is also a text-based markup language, developed from SGML (Standard generalize Markup Language, Standard Universal Markup Language), and the difference is that XML lets us base our presentation on the document, Define tags freely to represent meaningful document content, for example, we can define meaningful tags such as document name 〉〈/document name. and XML does not have a fixed set of tags like HTML, which is actually a language for defining languages, meaning that users of XML can define infinite tags to describe any data element in a document and organize the contents of the document into a rich and complete information system. In general, XML has four main features: easy to store data formats, scalability, highly structured, and easy network transmission, which provides a new starting point for us to create open, efficient, scalable, personalized Web applications.





2. From Wired to wireless


E-commerce is moving from desktops to broader wireless devices, Cahners In-stat market analyst predicts that the number of wireless subscribers worldwide will increase from 271 million in 2000 to 1.3 billion in 2004. Aberdeen Group's research director, Darcy Fowkes, believes that the advantage of wireless e-commerce is not just convenience, it can also save the company's financial resources, and mobile office can make the work more efficient.





However, due to the complex situation of multiple wireless network types, markup languages, protocols and wireless devices, it is not easy to convert network content and data into a format that can be recognized by wireless devices. At present, many companies are working to develop products that can extend applications and Internet content to wireless devices.





For example, IBM's new version of WebSphere transcoding Publisher 3.5 adds and improves many new features that translate data from the intranet to multiple wireless devices. New features in this release include support for more wireless devices, data formats, and language translation capabilities. It is based on a Java architecture that converts applications and data written in markup languages such as HTML and XML into formats that can be recognized by wireless devices such as WML, HDML (handheld Device Markup Language) and Imode. Access to information on the Internet is available through handheld devices.





Wireless equipment Manufacturer mobilize also launched mobilize commerce products to help companies access wireless networks. The software can access the enterprise's internal system through the wireless connection way, and realize the order sending and confirming. Mobilize commerce can make full use of XML to format information for wireless devices, including laptops, personal digital assistants, wireless telephones, VoIP, and two-way paging.





3. From Silent to sound


World now has 1 billion telephone terminals, there are more than 200 million of mobile phones. And in terms of people's own communication habits, people are more willing to use listening and speaking to communicate verbally.





at present, the Text Speech converter (Tts,text to Speech) research has made great progress, the realization of automatic language analysis and understanding, and allows TTS users to add more rhyme, tone in the speech, so that TTS system sound more closely to the human voice. In the field of automatic speech recognition system (ASR), the automatic speech recognition system develops from the whole word imitation to the phoneme level recognition system. The vocabulary of an automatic speech recognition system consists of an alphabet based on sound fragments, and the vocabulary is limited by different languages. In this way, in a wide range of voices, speech can be identified and identified by the system. And, in identifying a word, each phoneme will be taken from the input of the system, the combination of the combined with the existing phoneme and Word template to compare to produce the required template. The recognition of phonemes greatly reduces the dependence of ASR on speakers and makes it very easy to build large and easily modified speech recognition dictionaries to meet the needs of different application markets.





Another aspect of Web voice development is the progress of VoiceXML (Voice extensible Markup language-Speech Extensible Markup Language). The main goal of VoiceXML is to make the interactive voice interface fully enjoyable with the extensive application and rich content that is already on the web. The Web server handles a request from a client application, which is handled by the VoiceXML interpreter and the VoiceXML interpreter context, in response, the server produces VoiceXML files, and in response, it is processed by the VoiceXML interpreter. The VoiceXML 1.0 specification, based on XML, provides an intelligent API for developers, service providers, and device manufacturers of voice and telephony applications. The standardization of VoiceXML will simplify the creation of personalized interfaces on the web with voice response services, enabling people to access information and services on the web through voice and phone calls, retrieving central databases, accessing the intranet, and making new voice-access devices, as they do today through CGI scripts. The VoiceXML implementation platform loads the appropriate software and hardware, such as ASR, TTS, to enable speech recognition and conversion between text and voice. May 23, 2000, the consortium accepted the speech Extensible Markup Language VoiceXML 1.0 as an example.





Currently, IBM, Nokia, Lucent, Motorola and other well-known manufacturers have developed a corresponding support for VoiceXML products, but now the ASR and TTS systems are mostly not support Chinese.