What are the difference between servers?

Servers differ in the services they provide to the client machines. Servers are classified based on application as wells as the physical structure and size. Application servers run certain specified software applications. It can be a software framework which hosts the services or a hardware platform on which the services are deployed. The database server provides access to the primary locations of data. The entire data is stored at a single location which then makes it easy to access them from multiple client locations that can then also run concurrently.

A communication server provides the platform for the communication network. The fax server and the file server differ in the service they provide. A common type of server is the game server which acts as a common point for online gamers. Proxy servers act as a bridge between the client machine and the server. The proxy server filters the requests from the client based on the service and server demands and connects to the required server. Proxy servers are capable of editing the client requests.

Software’s that control the access to sound devices come under sound servers. Web servers accept the client HTTP requests and provide them the HTTP responses along with some optional data. Web servers are generally rack-mount servers. A home network which contains multiple machines like fax machine, printer, media devices etc can be controlled from a single machine called the home server. Home servers run on a variety of operating systems including Windows, Linux and Solaris.

Linux servers come with fully functional media service support and hence they are widely used as home servers. A common and free Linux home server is Amahi. Blade servers and rack-mount servers differ in the physical space they occupy. Blade servers also come with a blade enclosure capable of including multiple blade servers of various functionalities. Blade servers are commonly used for web hosting and cluster computing as they are ideal for these types of uses.

Blade servers are capable of handling large workloads. Rack-mount servers are those in which servers are arranged in industrial rack. A single standard rack is capable of holding 10 to 20 servers. Rack-mount servers come with rails or slides to ease inserting and removing the components. The rack mount server which comes with locking pins helps in easy server installation and removal which helps to make it both accessible and secure.

Multiple machines in a single rack are controlled using a single keyboard or mouse through a KVM switch. AMD has launched many server systems as well as chassis for rack mount environment. The Opteron server blades from AMD offer many benefits. The rack mount communication servers from Intel are widely used for data network application because of its rugged design and long life. The Intel rack mount servers come with the latest dual core and quad core CPU technology. Intel blade servers are suitable for small-to-medium as well as large data centre customers which makes them ideal for large offices and so on.



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