I am doing a school project where I am supposed to pretend to be a web master designing a web server to host an online company's web site. This company is completely online (no actual physical buildings) and sells merchandise to teenagers exclusively.

I've been trying to figure it out, but am soo confused as to how it is done! I know that I need a server, but I don't know what the server needs in regard to speed, memory, storage capabilities, and connection speeds. Also, I have no clue as to what web server software is (I think it's a different kind of operating system) and I don't know what features could be included. The website appearently has something called dynamic pages... what are those even? PLUS! Security... where the heck to I get started on that for a big company? HELP!

Basically a web server is a computer that allows other computers across the world to access files stored on it. In terms of the type of hardware that is required, any computer could be used as a web host. However a decent web server would have a good amount of memory (RAM), such as 2 GB, a decent sized hard disk for storing all of the web pages and photos, so say 80GB. The processor determines how fast web programs run on the server, so atleast 2Ghz processor.

The web server software is completely separate software to the operating system, so you could have a windows operating system (such as Windows XP), then have the program: Apache (web server software) running on the computer.