A server is a computer that provides data or services to other computers via a network (sometimes likened to a computer on steroids, lol). The term server applies to both the physical or virtual computer as well as the operating system running the physical or virtual server.
Virtualization is having multiple server instances on a physical system. There used to be different types of dedicated servers such as email server, web server (all physical, separate servers) but now you can run multiple server instances on one physical server.
A server is made up of both software and hardware, the physical server sitting in a data center and the functionalities the server is providing which can also be virtualized, providing different services to an organization. That’s the whole point of a server, to provide services. Your computer has an IP address. An IP address is a logical numeric address that is assigned to every single computer, printer, switch, router or any other device that is part of a TCP/IP-based network. They are similar to addresses in a town or city because the IP address gives the network node an address so that it can communicate with other nodes or networks. If anyone types in your IP address in a browser, that person can gain access to your computer just like a server but you don’t have server software installed so that can’t happen. And it’d be dangerous for anyone to just type in your IP address and get access to your computer. This actually means that a server provides access to external computers to get information from it.
What really makes up a server.
- The OS (operating system): One of the main differences between a basic computer and server is the operating system. It has a specific OS designed to provide series of services to end users who access the server over the network. The major server OS used are Microsoft server, Apache server, Linux server.
- The Hardware: Hardware requirements for servers differ depending on their application. To a greater extent than home computers, there is no one best configuration. The CPU speed of a server is usually not as important a concern as throughput. Throughput is defined as the amount of data that can be processed by a computer. Although the CPU is a big contributor to throughput, other aspects such as RAM speed and size, BUS speed, and hard drive read/write speeds contribute significantly to throughput. Often, servers have multiple CPUs to increase throughput rather than as a means to increase raw processing power.
- Servers often have higher RAM requirements than desktop computers to satisfy the throughput paradigm. The graphical ability of a server is rarely a useful feature since servers are not required to display graphical output to a monitor.
- Servers usually have higher networking requirements to serve hundreds of users simultaneously where fast network connections are matched to the needs of the server. Often, this includes much faster upload bandwidth than is found in homes and offices.
Services provided by a server.
These are just a few services provided by a server.
- Directory services: A directory service is the software system that stores, organizes and provides access to information in a computer operating system’s directory just like the ones used in organizations. Determines the files you have access to in your organization. The largest directory service used is from Microsoft, Active directory.
- DNS (Domain name system): It’s an internet service that translates a domain name into an IP address. For example, the IP address 127.0.0.1 might translate to www.example.com . It’ll be hard and probably weird for everyone to cram IP addresses to visit different sites, but then that’s what the computer understands. It’s easier to know domain names and whenever we want to visit a website, the DNS translates the domain name to the IP address so the computer can understand and serve up the files.
- File server: A file server provides a service that controls access to separately stored files as part of a multi user system. It’s basically a repository / library to keep all your files (sounds like github. lol).
- Index / Search service: The index service inventories all files on a server or network and organizes them in such a way that they can be easily located by executing a search query. The king of index services is Google, indexing all the sites on the internet, finding them and being able to return useful information about them when you search.
- Web server: Provides a service for hosting and managing websites. The websites are accessed by users via a web browser, and the web services serves up the web pages. It’s very critical in serving up web content.
- Database service: A database is a collection of information that is organized so that it can easily be accessed, managed and updated. These databases can integrate with other applications and systems. A database server can contain many databases.
- Email service: An email service provides users with the ability to send, receive and review email from their web browsers or email client like Outlook. A dedicated service to route your emails. Email services now do more than just sending and receiving emails. They do things like calendaring, scheduling. It’s a dedicated service that runs on a server to provide emails.
- Management server: This server keeps track of everything and makes sure it should be working as it should be. It’s like the mechanic. It contains a series of tools that allow an administrator to monitor and resolve any performance or stability issues with the server. It is generally accessed by system and network admins to ensure the well-being of the server. This management server is configured to manage a whole network of servers. The sole purpose of the server is to make sure the other servers are running as they should.
- Firewall service: Some server platforms provide a firewall service that turns server into a security apparatus for the network. This type of firewall uses a series of pre configured rules and monitors and blocks any inappropriate traffic. You can use it to block certain sites from being accessed.
- Print service: A print service allows multiple employees to access a single printer. A print server will generally administer more than one printer. A print server can manage hundreds of printers.
- Virtualization service: Allows multiple instances of a server application to be run on a single physical system. You can have 10 different servers with 40 different virtualized server instances running on those 10 servers. It allows for greater productivity and efficiency of the server resources. Servers are really expensive to buy and maintain but virtualization solves a large chunk of that problem. It’s literally setting up a server on a server. You can have an email server instance, firewall server instance, print server instances all on one physical server.
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