Backend Series Opens With Clients, Servers, and Ports: How Networked Systems Communicate

A developer has launched a new series on system design and networking, starting with the basics of how the internet works. The article explains that any network-connected device is a host, and that the client and server roles describe the software's function within a specific interaction rather than the machine itself. It notes that a server can run on an ordinary laptop, a virtual machine, or a cloud instance, not only on dedicated hardware. The piece then introduces IP addresses as the means by which packets are routed, describing the source and destination fields and the 32-bit structure of IPv4 addresses. Further topics on IPv6 and port-based application routing are deferred to later installments.