any ideas/suggestions for client server

sunnysingh · 11 Feb 2008 at 15:03

hi all i am doing a project with a group where we have to create a client-server model. we have decided to create a website where clients are able to download movie, the front end of the website is on frontpage express.

i need any ideas or suggestions on the server part, i need to create a form on frontpage where it lists all the movies, when a client clicks on the movie they want to download, the server must lookup in somesort of database and then allow for the download 2 happen. i am unsure how this can be done.

what server should i use ?

here is the requirments of the project to do with the server:

SERVERS
At least two servers, each offering different services
example services:
• media download (download or stream) - this is what i am doing
• information services (schedules, media info, etc)
• user-user services, e.g. messaging
• security (authentication, authorisation)

Solution must provide for:
• payment of content
• management of content on servers via management interface
• user databases, including accounts (easily identifiable and usable)

i have tried now 4 over 3 week for i am unclear on what 2 do,

i not asking for some1 to do it all but i need some ideas on where i can start and how 2 make the application successfull. i am not a strong programmer and database access isnt my think

thanks

gumbald · 11 Feb 2008 at 15:42

What kind of level is this for?

Some simple PHP and SQL will do it

sunnysingh · 11 Feb 2008 at 19:33

yeh but where do i start ?

gumbald · 11 Feb 2008 at 22:55

You'll need a server capable of both of those.

What knowledge do you have at the moment? What about the rest of your "group"?

sunnysingh · 12 Feb 2008 at 16:23

our knowledge is very limited at the moment, we undestand the idea of a basic client/server in theory but creating a server and getting it to do things is well near impossble 4 us, i have researched but i still finding it difficult. our
lecturer is saying use microsoft iis is that any good ?

gumbald · 12 Feb 2008 at 16:31

What course is this for?

IIS is a start.

Have a look at w3schools for some tutorials in web design: http://www.w3schools.com/

sunnysingh · 12 Feb 2008 at 17:04

i doing a degree in computer networks and security, the module is called
client server intergration,

gumbald · 12 Feb 2008 at 17:14

Yet you've not done any programming relevant to this task?

sunnysingh · 12 Feb 2008 at 17:21

only basic visual basic.net
i just not a good programmer

LazyManc · 12 Feb 2008 at 18:02

How long have you got? That's a pretty weighty set of requirements. Are you supposed to be building this from scratch or can you use off-the-shelf applications?

The brief is pretty ambiguous, are you sure they want a website? To me it sounds more like 1 person writes a server application and the other writes a client to connect to it.

sunnysingh · 12 Feb 2008 at 19:47

LazyManc said:
How long have you got? That's a pretty weighty set of requirements. Are you supposed to be building this from scratch or can you use off-the-shelf applications?

The brief is pretty ambiguous, are you sure they want a website? To me it sounds more like 1 person writes a server application and the other writes a client to connect to it.

yeh as a group we decided to create a website where clients are able to download movies, the deadlines on the 3rd march where we will have to submit a c.d of the application and also a presentation in front of the lecturer
showing evience of how the client and server work together for the application to work.

i have spoken to another lecturer who says that there is already code on certain websites that we can take and use but i cannot find it, the client side of the website is already done and the rest of the group is waitin for my part,

i really am stuck on what to do and where 2 start
any advice will be welcome
thanks

Fourstar · 12 Feb 2008 at 21:03

sunnysingh said:
the client side of the website is already done and the rest of the group is waitin for my part,

I'm kinda confused here.

What is the "client side"? Open firefox, enter url or have they written a web browser?

Maybe you mean they have done the front end, the part that interacts with the user. You are left to do the back end, the bit that processes the requests from the front end?

Has your group done any analysis/design? Functional requirements, interfaces between the front & back end etc? If not it is a pretty big ask for you to build this by yourself.

Also, are you expected to submit an installable/runnable application on CD? If so I don't see how they can not specify webserver, language and database requirements.

JIMA · 12 Feb 2008 at 22:08

Hi,

Have a look at this.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/howto/articles/webserver.aspx

Hope that's of some use.

Jim

elkdanger · 13 Feb 2008 at 12:18

Fourstar said:
I'm kinda confused here.
What is the "client side"? Open firefox, enter url or have they written a web browser?

I was going to chime in and say the same thing. It sounds like the module requires to you develop an application which employs a client-server model. Building a website doesn't really cover this you're not building the client (in your case the web browser) nor the server (the web host); you're just building an interface to interact with the server.

What you'd have to do if you want to continue with your idea of having a client which can download files, is to build the application in two parts: a server application which accepts TCP connections, and when it does it sends back a binary file from disk, and a client which sends TCP packets to your server application and receives the file.

At least, that's what I understood by "creating a project with a group where we have to create a client-server model".

Another way to implement this which sort of implements the client-server model is to build a web service which you can connect to from another website in order to stream media files.