The traditional approach to the software when developing a system has been to create a monolith. This is a fancy word to say a single element, containing everything, and it is the way virtually every project starts. In the context of web applications, that means creating deployable code that can be replicated so that requests can be directed to any of the deployed copies:
After all, every project will start off small. Making strict divisions early on is inconvenient and even doesn't make sense. A newly created project is small and probably handled by a single developer. While the design can fit in the head of a few people, making strict boundaries between parts of the system is counterproductive.
There are a lot of options for running a web service, but one will typically consist of one or more servers (physical boxes, virtual...
