Definition of Web Server

Although it is redundant, the function of a server is to "serve", that is, to provide resources and files to a series of users, who connect from the clients.

When we talk about a server, we can be referring to both the hardware (a computer server) and software (a program that acts as a server for something).

A server computer is one whose hardware is prepared to deal with an intensive workload usually 24/7

Since the servers must be ready to meet the needs of the users who connect to them at any time.

In general, servers (speaking of computers) use special motherboards, prepared to withstand a large workload, and various redundant elements such as power supplies. feeding and devices storage (hard drives).

With these latter mirrors, fault-tolerant RAID systems can be mounted, so that a problem in one of the disks not only does not mean the loss of information, but the server continues to operate waiting to restore the failed disk or replace it with a server new.

Generally, you do not work directly on the servers, that is, in a company that has one or more servers for your needs, you will not have anyone who is sitting with a screen and a keyboard connected directly to the server, and performing desktop tasks with it, but users connect remotely.

There may also be servers specialized in carrying out a specific task within the organization in which they provide service.

As, for example, the file server (in which the storage of users' files is centralized), or the printing (which manages, on the one hand, the printers in the company and, on the other, the documents that users send to to print).

We also have servers for copies of safety, or mail, proxy... You are reading this article on a web page and, in order to access it, you need to connect to a web server, which is the one that hosts this page.

And this brings us to another point ...

Hardware is nothing without software; the operating systems and programs we use for servers are not the ones we normally use on desktop computers

Thus, Microsoft has server versions of Windows that are different from the desktop systems of the same company that go on the market under the same name, while the server versions of GNU / Linux distributions also differ in the software they include from the versions of desk.

But a server is not only the operating systembut rather the software on which it works. The system can provide you services that only a server requires, but the true functionality of a server is given by the program that performs the function for which the apparatus.

Thus, a web server must execute, on the server operating system, a web page server program, whose task will be be attentive to the port determined by where the Internet users' requests come from, and deliver them the web page that looking for.

A database server will attend the requests of those who connect, running on the server operating system which, in turn, will run on computer hardware servant.

Servers can take many different forms

From those that most resemble a traditional computer, in Format tower, to the rackable, that is, they can be placed in a cupboard in the form of rack, to large cabinets with several components and that, in general, are used in large organizations with many users.

Even a conventional PC can be put to server functions with the right software, and this is common in small businesses and organizations, although it is not the ideal situation. It is as if we were trying to transport people with a utility vehicle ...

Photos: Fotolia - jijomathai / agnormark

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