Origins, Roles & Protocols of Web and Application Servers Quiz

Q1. A developer is using Apache HTTP Server to serve images and static HTML files, while forwarding requests for dynamic API calls to a separate Node.js application server. What does this architecture illustrate? The web server is placed behind the application server
Separation of concerns: a web server for static content and an application server for dynamic logic
Node.js is being used primarily as a static file server
Combining the web server and application server roles into a single tier

Q2. During deployment of a web application, the team separates responsibilities between the web server and the application server. Which of the following is typically handled by the web server (and not by the application server)? Serving static files (like images, CSS, and HTML) directly to clients
Executing server-side business logic for dynamic content
Performing database transactions and queries
Compiling application source code at runtime

Q3. A team notices that their site is slow because the server opens a new TCP connection for every request (HTML, CSS, images). Which HTTP improvement addressed this by allowing a connection to remain open for multiple requests? Persistent connections (HTTP keep-alive) in HTTP/1.1
HTTP/1.1 pipelining of requests
HTTP/2 multiplexing of requests
Chunked transfer encoding for HTTP/1.1

Q4. A developer finds that even with persistent connections, HTTP/1.1 requests often still queue up due to head-of-line blocking. Which protocol feature was introduced to allow multiple concurrent requests over a single connection and avoid this bottleneck? Using multiple TCP connections to fetch resources concurrently
HTTP/1.1 pipelining of requests
HTTP/2 multiplexing of requests
HTTP/3 using QUIC transport

Q5. A user on a high-latency network finds that establishing new HTTPS connections is slow because of the TCP and TLS handshakes. Which HTTP version reduces this setup latency by using a new transport protocol that combines these handshakes? HTTP/1.1 using TLS 1.3
HTTP/2 with HPACK header compression
Using a Content Delivery Network (CDN) for static content
HTTP/3 (QUIC) with combined transport and security handshake

Q6. A company deploys their web application across three layers. Clients connect first to an Nginx server, which then forwards requests to a pool of application servers, which in turn query a database. What architecture style does this represent? Two-tier client-server architecture
Three-tier architecture (presentation, application, data)
Peer-to-peer architecture
Monolithic single-layer architecture

Q7. A startup places an Nginx reverse proxy in front of its application servers. Which of the following is a benefit of this approach? Allowing users to directly query the database from the browser
Shifting all network latency to the backend servers
Moving the application's business logic into the web browser
Load balancing incoming requests across multiple servers

Q8. A company finds its application servers are using high CPU to handle SSL encryption for each request. They want to offload TLS encryption and HTTP compression to another component. What solution should they implement? Introduce a reverse proxy or load balancer to handle TLS termination and compression
Perform all encryption on the database server instead
Make the client handle encryption and send plain HTTP to the server
Disable TLS to eliminate the overhead

Q9. A web application is slow to deliver static assets (images, CSS), and the application servers are overburdened serving these files. What strategy would improve load times and reduce server load? Increase the complexity of database queries for static content
Have the application regenerate static files on every request
Use caching or a CDN to offload serving static assets
Switch from HTTP to FTP for delivering files

Q10. An organization uses Nginx as a front-end server that terminates SSL, compresses responses, serves static files, and routes requests to backend services. Why is this architecture beneficial? It breaks the layered design by handling multiple responsibilities at once
It offloads work from the application servers (SSL, compression, static content), improving overall performance
It slows down each request by introducing an extra network hop
It adds complexity with no performance or manageability benefits

Q11. Which of the following statements is a common misconception about web servers versus application servers? Web servers primarily handle HTTP requests for static content and can forward dynamic requests to an app server
In a multi-tier setup, a web server or reverse proxy often sits in front of application servers
Application servers often include built-in web server components to handle HTTP and dynamic content
Web server and application server mean the same thing, with no difference in roles

Q12. During an interview, a candidate says: "Our web server handles all the business logic and database calls, and our application server is only used for serving static files." What is the problem with this description? Nothing is wrong; that description is perfectly fine
They should have included a separate database server in the description
It completely reverses the typical roles: normally the app server handles logic and data while the web server handles static content
The only problem is that static files should be on a CDN instead of the application server

Q13. Which of these websites would NOT require a separate application server to deliver its content? A complex e-commerce site with user accounts and dynamic pricing
A real-time analytics dashboard that queries a database for each user
A personal blog of static HTML pages and images
A social media platform with interactive user feeds and login

Q14. In the 1990s, a web server executes a Perl script to generate dynamic content, passing request data via environment variables to the script and reading back the output. Which standard mechanism is the server using to interface with the external program? AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML)
CGI (Common Gateway Interface)
ODBC (Open Database Connectivity)
A reverse proxy pass-through

Q15. A team builds a web application using Node.js and Express without a separate web server (like Apache or Nginx). In this setup, which statement is true about how the server operates? The Node.js application handles HTTP requests and application logic together (acting as both web server and app server)
Static files cannot be served in this configuration
A dedicated web server is required for any dynamic content
The Node.js server cannot handle high traffic without an Apache front-end

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