Zihao Li. Trinity Relationship Among Web Servers, Database Servers and Humans in Different Roles and Settings. A Master’s Paper for the M.S. in I.S degree. April, 2020. 67 pages. Advisor: Paul Jones. Front-end web server and back-end database servers are widely recognized as two essential infrastructure components that cast significant influence on the stability and success of individuals and organizations. Nevertheless, unreliable or problematic servers could cause issues to jeopardize the regular operation of those organizations. Knowing that the market now exists a wide range of available web server and database server providers, users face challenges of effectively evaluating those service providers based on their experience and perception of the definition of the excellent and robust web server and database server. Thus, the study would provide a detailed analysis and comparison between available and accessible performance evaluation methods. Besides, anonymous surveys within user groups are conducted to show reflections of how different groups of users in different roles and setting tend to evaluate the performance, and feedbacks from semi-structured interviews are presented and discussed. Headings: Web Server Database Server Data Visualization Performance Evaluation Human-Computer Interaction TRINITY RELATIONSHIP AMONG WEB SERVERS, DATABASE SERVERS AND HUMANS IN DIFFERENT ROLES AND SETTINGS by Zihao Li A Master’s paper submitted to the faculty of the School of Information and Library Science of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Information Science. Chapel Hill, North Carolina April 2020 Approved by _______________________________________ Paul Jones 1 Table of Contents 1. Introduction ................................................................................................. 2 2. Literature Review ........................................................................................ 4 2.1 Web Server and its Functionality .......................................................... 4 2.2 Web Server Risks and Performance Analysis Method ........................ 5 2.3 Database Server and its Functionality .................................................. 8 2.4 Database Performance Analysis Method ........................................... 10 2.4.1 System Monitoring ....................................................................... 10 2.4.2 SQL server and database querying monitoring ............................ 11 2.4.3 Failover cluster instance ............................................................... 12 3. Research Design and Method .................................................................... 14 3.1 Research Question .............................................................................. 14 3.2 Research Method ................................................................................ 14 3.2.1 Quantitative Approach ................................................................ 15 3.2.2 Qualitative Approach .................................................................. 16 4. Quantitative Data Findings from Survey .................................................. 18 4.1 Survey Purposes and Process ............................................................. 18 4.2 Population ........................................................................................... 19 4.3 Applied Measurements ....................................................................... 20 4.3.1 Close-ended Questions ................................................................. 21 4.3.2 Open-ended Questions ................................................................ 22 4.3.3 Demographic Questions ............................................................... 23 4.4 Data Result and Discussion ................................................................ 23 4.4.1 Demographic Section Result ........................................................ 24 4.3.2 Database Server Section Result .................................................... 25 4.3.3 Web Server Section Result ........................................................... 33 5. Qualitative Results from Semi-structured interview ................................. 41 5.1 Semi-structured interview purpose and process .................................. 41 5.2 Interview Case Studies ........................................................................ 42 5.2.1 Student #1 ..................................................................................... 42 5.2.2 Student #2 ..................................................................................... 45 5.2.3 Staff #1 ......................................................................................... 47 5.2.4 Staff #2 ......................................................................................... 51 6. Conclusion and Future Works .................................................................. 55 Bibliography ................................................................................................. 58 APPENDICES .............................................................................................. 60 APPENDIX A: Survey Questions in User Study ..................................... 60 APPENDIX B: Semi-Structured Interview Questions .............................. 65 2 1. Introduction For any individuals or organizations that are eager to cast some influences on human society, they would face three primary questions at the beginning of their grand market- conquering projects which are: How to develop an attractive and reliable front-end window to broadcast the idea of the company to the world? How to create a giant and organized back-end system and database to store collected data from clients and potential clients for further tailored propaganda and services? How to maximize the power of propaganda and data to provide excellent customer service to clients and establish a renowned reputation in the market? Those who figure out those three key questions will not only be successful at marketing their brands, but also attract clients and gain trust from them to grow bigger and faster. Thus, such a trinity puzzle has bothered people from start-alone individuals to existing industry giants. The answers to the first two questions, choosing reliable front-end and back-end servers, are often investigated by conducting industry research and taking experiences from competitors. Generally, the front-end system refers to the presentation 3 layer of the infrastructure, while the back-end system indicates the data access layer, and thus most companies and individuals focus the research on the performance of web- server and databases that exist in the market. The answer to the last question, which is about the relationship among front-end web servers, back-end databases, and clients, can vary depending on perceptions and orientations of different individuals and organizations. Witnessing the intricate relationship between server tools and users in different working settings or purposes, this paper investigates on how people in different roles interact with various web servers and databases and choose performance analysis methods, and further, provide insights from campus users in different roles and working scenarios about the relationship between people and servers. 4 2. Literature Review Before the investigation into the relationship between hardware and people, this paper discusses the web server and database about how they can cast an influence on the operation of users and how users should utilize those to accomplish their goals. 2.1 Web server and its Functionality Generally speaking, the web server can work as both software and hardware. On the hardware side, a web server can be computers and appliances that store webserver software and website's component files, such as HTML files. The web server is connected to the Internet and supports physical data interchange with other devices connected to the web. Meanwhile, the web server can refer to software that includes several parts that control how web users access hosted files. Web server usually has an HTTP server, which is a piece of software that understands URLs and HTTP. Besides, dedicated computers and appliances that are broadly used in industry, such as clusters, may be referred to as web servers as well. A web server is capable of containing multiple websites to satisfy the needs of organizations, and it processes incoming network requests over HTTP protocol and several other related protocols. With the assistance of web 5 servers, websites can be accessed through the domain names that store and deliver their content to the end user's device. However, the companies would need either a static or a dynamic webserver to publish the websites. The static web server consists of hardware appliances with an HTTP server and related software, and the server would send hosted files to the user-end without any customization or changes according to different user groups. In contrast, a dynamic web server consists of a static web server plus extra software, such as an application server and a database. Thus, the application server would update the hosted files according to the data and analysis based on different user groups and IP addresses before displaying on the browser via the HTTP server. While this solution provides flexibility, the technical stack becomes more difficult to handle, making it dramatically