Mr.Troubleshooting

Servers are usually called as masters and boss in client server computing as it provides services to the clients. Clients are low graded machines compared to the servers, which usually requests to the server for getting a service. In general, a server passively awaits for the client to request, and it is server’s decision to provide a service to the client. For example, a file server is a computer and storage device dedicated to storing files Any user on the network can store files on the server.

Clients requests to the servers in the form of messages. These messages describes the server that, what kind of service is requested, and from which of the clients.

Here service refer to certain processes, like data transaction in case of a database server. According to the services provided by the server, we categorize servers into different types. They are:-

• File servers
• Database servers
• Transaction servers
• Groupware servers
• Web servers

The above are the main categories of servers in client server computing. servers are usually fat, [high powered then clients] because they have to provide services for all the clients that are connected to it through any medium of network. In this case, its called as 'fat server' - 'thin client' atmosphere. In some cases, the clients do their own processes without any help from the server. these clients need server only for data clarification, in this case the atmosphere is described as 'fat server- fat client' atmosphere.

A fat client or rich client is a computer in client server architecture networks which typically provides rich functionality independently of the central server.

A thin client (sometimes also called a lean or slim client) is a client computer or client software in client server architecture networks which depends primarily on the central server for processing activities, and mainly focuses on conveying input and output between the user and the remote server. In contrast, a thick or fat client does as much processing as possible and passes only data for communications and storage to the server.

The server is almost hi-powered or equally powered to the clients that are connected to it. With this client server architechture, a long run of mainframes have came to end. Its only because of high cost and high care needed for a mainframe to run continously, but maintaining the server in client server architechture is very easy when compared to mainframes.

M.nambi krishnan,
B.Sc Computer Science student,
namkrishpillai@gmail.com

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com - servers in client server computing