Servers in Computer Network

In this article I describe the function of servers in computer network. Servers are a kind of endpoint device in any network. Servers in a computer network provides specific services to the clients belongs to it. Server’s works in server client model network. Servers are very high configuration computers from hardware as well as software.

The concern of servers in computer network related to the equipment used in a network. The networking devices provides the data transfer between different nodes of the network. It became helpful to appear in CCNA exam after understanding the networking devices for CCNA. Servers in computer network are the equipment’s which provide multiple services to the nodes. Many other networking devices used for flow the data between nodes like switch, hub, router, wireless router etc.

The main purpose of networking is to share the resources available in the network. For example suppose you have a small network consisting 20 computers for office work. You don’t need to purchase a separate printer for each computer. You can use a single printer for all the devices connected with the network. Similarly you can use a single scanner and other devices with sharing with all computers of the network. To understand IOT it is necessary to understand the networking devices for CCNA

A lots of clients can be served by a single server. Some example of services provided by servers are mail service, file transfer service, web services, application services, DHCP services etc. A server mostly used for a single service it means if you need multiple services in your network, you need to keep multiple servers in your network.

Servers in computer network function on the request-response basis. It means when a client need any service from network, it send a request to all networking devices after receiving the request the relevant server will response to the client.

A server can provide a single multiple services but we use a server for a particular service in the computer network. It is because for multiple services the response rate of server become poor and the speed of services become poor. If you need multiple services and have a single server you can use hyper-v technology.

Hyper-V technique provide multiple physical machines for multiple services. To use hyper-v your server hardware should be very strong I means the RAM, CPU and space. You can use DNS and DHCP services from a single machine. For mail and file transfer services you should use separate servers.

Types of servers in computer network

In this section of the article I describe some types of services which are provided by servers. These services are mail service, file service, print service, application service, DNS service, DHCP service, database service etc.

Mail servers in computer network

Email service is very common service in the world of computer network. We all used email services to share information on computer network like internet. Email service provided by mail servers. Mail servers keep the information of mail users in the form of mail box. These mail box contains the received and sent mail. Mail server forward the email from a source to destination. The example of mail server is Microsoft exchange server. Mail server works on the request – response model basis. All users and client can use the mail service by authentication method. IMAP, POP3 and SMTP protocol used for mail services.

File servers in computer network

File servers allow to upload and download e-files to the client. A file server client can upload and download any e-file to server. Separate ports used for uploading and downloading documents on FTP protocol. FTP works on port 21 in the network protocol.

Print servers in computer network

In a Big Local Area Network it is not a good idea to keep separate printer with each client. To provide centralized printing service print servers are used. The printing server receive the print requests and give print out in the priority sequence basis. The printing server works on network port number 9100, 9101 and 9102.

Application servers in computer network

Application servers provide the service to access the application on a network. The application can be used to capture the data from user and save to database. Some applications used to retrieve the data in the form of report. The example of application are web application, ATM application, HTTP services etc. different applications uses different network ports.

DNS servers in computer network

DNS is acronym for Domain Name System. DNS server converts the IP address to domain names and vice versa. For example when we enter a web address in a browser the DNS resolve the IP address belong to the website and user access the web page. DNS server used worldwide for internet services. DNS service works on network port number 53.

WEB servers in computer network

Web servers are a kind of application server. Web server used for hosting a website and provide it on the internet for web clients. An example of web service is IIS service of Microsoft environment. HTTP and HTTPS services used by the web servers these are use port 80 and 443 of TCP/IP.

Database servers in computer network

Database servers used to store and retrieve the data of users, clients and other things. All companies use database server for example ticket booking companies, hospitals, railways etc. the database servers require a huge space in it to store the data. The database can be of Microsoft SQL, Oracle or Informix.

Proxy servers in computer network

A proxy server is an intermediate server between a client and server. Proxy server isolate the main server from direct hit from the clients. A proxy server takes the request from client and response accordingly from the second server.

Various types of operating systems used in servers

There are many types of operating systems used in servers in computer networking. The mostly used operating system is Microsoft windows server. This OS works on windows environment I mean the client should be use windows operating system to avail the services from it. There are many versions available like windows server 2008,2012,2016 etc. This operating system is a paid version of Microsoft product. These servers supports .net framework.

Another important operating system for servers is Linux/Unix. It is an open source platform and it doesn’t support windows operating system clients. The examples are RedHat linux, Debian and CentOS. These servers support apache web application services.

Another kind of servers is cloud servers. Cloud service allowed to use various services from a third party hardware. Some example of cloud server are Microsoft Azure, IBM, AWS etc.

In this article I describe the basics of servers in computer network. I hope you found this article helpful. For any query or suggestion you may drop a comment below or contact us. Your suggestions are always welcome by us.