SERVER-SIDE

Occurring on the server side of a client-server system. For example, on the World Wide Web, CGI scripts are server-side applications because they run on the Web server. In contrast, JavaScript scripts are client-side because they are executed by your browser (the client). Java applets can be either server-side or client-side depending on which computer (the server or the client) executes them.

Server-Side Code

There are several server-side technologies that can be used when developing web applications. The most popular is Microsoft’s ASP.NET. In ASP.NET, server-side code uses the .NET Framework and is written in languages like C# and VB.NET. Server-side processing is used to interact with permanent storage like databases or files. The server will also render pages to the client and process user input. Server-side processing happens when a page is first requested and when pages are posted back to the server. Examples of server-side processing are user validation, saving and retrieving data, and navigating to other pages.

The disadvantage of server-side processing is the page postback: it can introduce processing overhead that can decrease performance and force the user to wait for the page to be processed and recreated. Once the page is posted back to the server, the client must wait for the server to process the request and send the page back to the client.