Server Computers
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An application server is a software engine that delivers applications to client computers or devices. Moreover, an application server handles most, if not all, of the business logic and data access of the application (A.K.A. centralization). The main benefit of application servers are the ease of application development. Application development is made easier because applications are not programmed; instead, they are assembled from the many building blocks that the application server provides.
Although the term application server applies to all platforms, it has become heavily identified with the Sun Microsystems J2EE platform; however, it has also come to encompass servers of web-based applications, such as integrated platforms for e-commerce, content management systems, affiliate management systems, and simple web-site builders. The paradigm is a throw-back to mainframe based applications while maintaining the benefits of client-server computing.
Communications servers are open, standards-based computing systems that operate as a carrier-grade common platform for a wide range of communications applications and allow equipment providers to add value at many levels of the system architecture.
Based on industry-managed standards such as AdvancedTCAŽ, MicroTCATM, Carrier Grade Linux and Service AvailabilityTM Forum specifications, communications servers are the foundational platform upon which equipment providers build network infrastructure elements for deployments such as IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS), IPTV and wireless broadband (e.g. WiMAX).
By driving down infrastructure costs, improving time to market, and shifting user resources toward the development of new applications and services, communications servers will help accelerate the cost effective deployment of converged services.
Support for communications servers as a category of server is developing rapidly throughout the communications industry. Standards bodies, industry associations, vendor alliance programs, hardware and software manufacturers, communications server vendors and users are all part of an increasingly robust communications server ecosystem.
Regardless of their specific, differentiated features, communications servers have the following attributes: open, flexible, carrier-grade, and communications-focused.
A database server is a computer program that provides database services to other computer programs or computers, as defined by the client-server model. The term may also refer to a computer dedicated to running such a program. Database management systems frequently provide database server functionality, and some DBMS's (e.g., MySQL) rely exclusively on the client-server model for database access.
Database Master servers are central and main locations of data while Database Slave servers are synchronized backups of the master acting as proxies.
In computer networks, a proxy server is a server (a computer system or an application program) which services the requests of its clients by making requests to other servers. A client connects to the proxy server, requesting a file, connection, web page, or other resource available from a different server. A proxy server provides the resource by connecting to the specified server, with some exceptions: A proxy server may alter the client's request or the server's response. A proxy server may service the request without contacting the specified server.
(A proxy server that passes all requests and replies unmodified is not called a proxy server. It is a gateway.)
A proxy server can be placed in the user's local computer, or at specific key points between the user and the destination servers or the Internet.
A game server is a server used by game clients. Any video game played over the internet generally requires a connection to a game server.
How it works
Data is sent from the game client to the game server, from there the game server processes the data and sends it back out to the client or clients. Game servers often require large amounts of bandwidth due to the amount of data that has to be sent between the server and all the clients that are connected to it.
Standalone servers are compilations of programs that run on a single PC, but emulates what the same set of programs will do when run on a server over the Internet. They usually contain a web server (such as the Apache HTTP Server), one or more languages, and one or more databases.
The term Web server can mean one of two things:
A computer that is responsible for accepting HTTP requests from clients, which are known as Web browsers, and serving them HTTP responses along with optional data contents, which usually are Web pages such as HTML documents and linked objects (images, etc.).
A computer program that provides the functionality described in the first sense of the term.
Client server is network architecture which separates a client (often an application that uses a graphical user interface) from a server. Each instance of the client software can send requests to a server. Specific types of servers include web servers, application servers, file servers, terminal servers, and mail servers. While their purposes vary somewhat, the basic architecture remains the same.
Although this idea is applied in a variety of ways, on many different kinds of applications, an easy example to visualize is an internet site. For instance, if you are browsing an online store, your computer and web browser would be considered a client, and the computers, databases, and applications that make up the online store would be considered the server. When your web browser requests a particular page from the online store, the server finds all of the information required to display the article in the database, assembles it into a web page, and sends it back to your web browser for you to look at.
A peer-to-peer server (or P2P) computer network relies primarily on the computing power and bandwidth of the participants in the network rather than concentrating it in a relatively low number of servers. P2P networks are typically used for connecting nodes via largely ad hoc connections. Such networks are useful for many purposes. Sharing content files (see file sharing) containing audio, video, data or anything in digital format is very common, and realtime data, such as telephony traffic, is also passed using P2P technology.
A pure peer-to-peer network does not have the notion of clients or servers, but only equal peer nodes that simultaneously function as both "clients" and "servers" to the other nodes on the network. This model of network arrangement differs from the client-server model where communication is usually to and from a central server. A typical example for a non peer-to-peer file transfer is an FTP server where the client and server programs are quite distinct, and the clients initiate the download/uploads and the servers react to and satisfy these requests.
The earliest peer to-peer network in widespread use was the Usenet news server system, in which peers communicated with one another to propagate Usenet news articles over the entire Usenet network. Particularly in the earlier days of Usenet, UUCP was used to extend even beyond the Internet. However, the news server system also acted in a client-server form when individual users accessed a local news server to read and post articles. The same consideration applies to SMTP email in the sense that the core email relaying network of Mail transfer agents is a peer-to-peer network while the periphery of Mail user agents and their direct connections is client server.
Some networks and channels such as Napster, OpenNAP and IRC server channels use a client-server structure for some tasks (e.g. searching) and a peer-to-peer structure for others. Networks such as Gnutella or Freenet use a peer-to-peer structure for all purposes, and are sometimes referred to as true peer-to-peer networks, although Gnutella is greatly facilitated by directory servers that inform peers of the network addresses of other peers.
Peer-to-peer architecture embodies one of the key technical concepts of the internet, described in the first internet Request for Comments, RFC 1, "Host Software" dated 7 April 1969. More recently, the concept has achieved recognition in the general public in the context of the absence of central indexing servers in architectures used for exchanging multimedia files.
The concept of peer to peer is increasingly evolving to an expanded usage as the relational dynamic active in distributed networks, i.e. not just computer to computer, but human to human. Yochai Benkler has coined the term "commons-based peer production" to denote collaborative projects such as free software. Associated with peer production are the concept of peer governance (referring to the manner in which peer production projects are managed) and peer property (referring to the new type of licenses which recognize individual authorship but not exclusive property rights, such as the GNU General Public License and the Creative Commons License).