What is mean by server side processing?

Answer 1

In some traditional computing environments the presence of client-server architecture is noted. This is especially true in the internet age, but is perhaps best demonstrated in a legacy one - namely mainframe environments. Back in the days of mainframe popularity, there was one main computer (the mainframe SERVER) and many many terminal connections (think screen and keyboard only CLIENTS) into that mainframe. The way that the user would connect to utilize system resources was through interface devices such as keyboard and monitor. There were no desktop computer processing components on the user's side (CLIENT SIDE), all the processing was done by the mainframe (SERVER SIDE).

In more common modernly utilized systems, such as typical internet browsing, there are the presence of computational resources at both ends of the connection. There is a server sitting out there somewhere that has files on it that you want to look at. Perhaps it is a web-page that you enjoy about plants, or music, or history. Perhaps there is a database (a searchable organized collection of data) also residing somewhere on this server somewhere out there. The web SERVER has the ability to use the code that is contained in the webpage to process incoming requests (from the CLIENT - from you or other users who want to browse the pages it offers) and perhaps pull some information out of this database on plants, or music, or history. All this processing takes place on this remote machine that is out there somewhere. Your local machine that is doing the requesting (the CLIENT) does nothing but wait for the request to be prepared and served up to you in your browser.

When the SERVER is done requesting resources and information from the database (querying) the page is rendered and sent to you (the CLIENT). Your client-side browser takes the information and presents it to you. Some rendering may be done locally on the client-side, but the processing for the page all took place server-side.