How does internet works? Basic knowledge you must know!

Last Updated on June 15, 2022 by srikanta

Every now and then we keep thinking that “how does the internet work?” The blog you are watching now traveled thousands of miles from a Google Data Center to reach you. In this blog, you will learn how does the internet works by understanding every detail of this data’s incredible journey. We hope that your search for how does internet works will end after reading this post. But before going to the topic of How does internet works, first, let us find out what a Data center is?

WHAT IS A DATA CENTER?

In simple words, a data center is a place where all these internet data are stored. The data center can be thousands of miles away from you. This blog is also stored inside it. Not only this blog, other data like YouTube videos, Facebook data, Instagram reels, or photos everything is stored in such a data center. Now how does this data reach your mobile phone or a laptop?

HOW DID THIS DATA REACH TO YOU?

An easy way to achieve this goal would be with the use of satellites. From the data center, a signal could be sent to the satellite via an antenna, and then from the satellite, a signal could be sent to your mobile phone via another antenna near to you. However, this way of transmitting signals is not a good idea.

Let’s see why?

The satellite is parked nearly 22,000 miles above the earth’s equator, so in order for the data transmission to be successful, the data would have to travel a total distance of 44,000 miles. Such a long distance of travel causes a significant delay in receiving the signal. More specifically it causes huge latency. And as you all know this is unacceptable for most internet applications. So if this blog post does not reach you via a satellite then how does it actually get to you?

If not by satellites then how?

Well, it is done with the help of a complicated network of optical fiber cables, which connect the data center and your device. Your phone could be connected to the internet via cellular data or any Wi-Fi router, but ultimately at some point, your phone is connected to this network of optical fiber cables.

Optical Fiber

Optical fibers are instruments in which the Principle of Total Internal Reflection is applied. In simple words, these are the instruments through which you can send data without any leakage. There are a few global companies (AT&T, GOOGLE, ORANGE, VERIZON) that lay and maintain these optical cable networks. These photos are showing how the laying of optical fiber cables is done with the help of a ship. A plough is dropped deep into the sea from the ship, and this creates a trench on the sea bed where the optical fiber cables are placed. In fact, this complex optical cable network is the backbone of the Internet. These optical fiber cables carrying the light are stretched across the seabed to your doorstep where they are connected to a router.

WHAT IS SSD?

We read at the beginning that the blog you are currently reading is stored inside a data center. To be more specific, it is stored in a solid-state device(SSD) within the data center. This SSD acts as the internal memory of a server. The server is simply a powerful computer whose job is to provide you with the blog or other stored content when you request it. Now the challenge is how to transfer the data stored in the data center specifically to your device via the complex network of optical fiber cables. To know about it we first need to know about IP address.

What is an IP address?

Every device that is connected to the Internet whether it is a server a computer or a mobile phone is identified uniquely by a string of numbers known as an IP address. You can consider an IP address similar to your home address, that uniquely identifies your home. Any letter sent to you reaches you precisely because of your home address. Similarly in the internet world, an IP address acts as a shipping address through which all information reaches its destination. Your internet service provider will decide the IP address of your device. You can also find out what is the IP address of your mobile phone or laptop. The server in the data center also has an IP address. The server stores a website so you can access any website just by knowing the server’s IP address.

However, it is difficult for a person to remember so many IP addresses. So to solve this problem domain names like youtube.com, facebook.com, etc are used which correspond to IP addresses that are easier for us to remember than the long sequence of numbers.

Another thing to notice here is that a server has the capability of storing several websites and if the server consists of multiple websites all the websites cannot be accessed with the server’s IP address. In such cases, additional pieces of information like host headers are used to uniquely identify the website. However, for giant websites like Facebook.com or YouTube.com the entire data center infrastructure will be dedicated to the storage of the particular website. To access the internet we always use domain names instead of complex IP address numbers.

How does the internet works to identify our IP address?

Now the question is from where does the internet get IP addresses corresponding to our domain name requests? Well, for this purpose the internet uses a huge phone book known as DNS. If you know a person’s name, but don’t know their telephone number you can simply look it up in a phone book. The DNS server provides the same service to the internet. Your internet service provider or other organizations can manage the DNS server.

IN WHICH FORM DOES DATA TRAVEL?

This blog you are reading from the Google Data Center is sent to you in the form of a huge collection of zeros and ones. The data transfer on the internet is efficient because these zeros and ones are chopped up into small chunks known as packets and transmitted.

Let’s assume these streams of zeros and ones are divided into different packets by the server. Each packet consists of six bits. Along with the bits, each packet also consists of the sequence number and the IP addresses of the server and your phone. With this information, the packets are routed toward your phone. It’s not necessary that all packets are routed through the same path. Each packet independently takes the best route available at that time. Upon reaching your phone the packets are reassembled according to their sequence number. If it is the case that any packets fail to reach your phone and acknowledgment is sent from your phone to resend the lost packets.

INTERNET PROTOCOL

Now compare this whole process with a postal network with good infrastructure. When the customers do not follow the basic rules regarding the destination addresses, letters won’t be able to reach the correct destination. So for smooth delivery, one must follow the basic rules or protocols.

Similarly, on the internet, we use something called protocols for the management of this complex flow of data packets. The protocols set the rules for data packet conversion, attachment of the source and destination addresses to each packet, and the rules for routers, etc. For different applications the protocols used are different.

HOW DOES THE WHOLE CYCLE OF THE INTERNET WORKS?

Let’s have a recap of the whole operation.

You enter the domain name, the browser sends a request to the DNS server to get the corresponding IP address. After getting the IP address, your browser simply forwards the request to the data center, more specifically to the respective server. Once the server gets a request to access a particular website the data flow starts.

The data is transferred in digital format via optical fiber cables, more specifically in the form of light pulses. These light pulses sometimes have to travel thousands of miles via the optical fiber cable to reach their destination. During their journey, they often have to go through tough terrain such as hilly areas or under the sea. Finally, they reach the routers through these optical fibers. The router converts these light signals to electrical signals. An Ethernet cable is then used to transmit the electrical signals to your laptop.

However, if you are accessing the Internet using cellular data, from the optical cable the signal is sent to a cell tower. From the cell tower, the signal reaches your cell phone in the form of electromagnetic waves.

Since the Internet is a global network it has become important to have an organization to manage things like IP address assignment, domain name registration, etc. This is all managed by an institution called ICANN(Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) located in the USA.

CONCLUSION

We hope this blog on “How does the internet works?” has given you a good understanding of how the internet works. More specifically about the amazing journey of data packets from the data center to your mobile phone.

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