Define Server and Client

In this tutorial, we are going to talk about server and client systems. We will discuss what is the server in the network and also we will discuss what is the client in the network. What is the client-server architecture model?

We will discuss how does the server and client work in the network. Let's start.

We know that using the computer network, one device can communicate with another device on the network. Resources that are attached to one device can be accessed from another device over the network. Thus the sender and receiver devices have to play a different roles when sharing resources with each other through the network. Here the sender device will play the role of a server and the receiver device will play the role of a client. 

So now the question is what is the server? 

In a computer network, a server is a computer program or a single hardware device that provides a service or functionality to other computer programs or devices in the network.

Now, what is the client in the network?

A client is a hardware device or a software or computer program that uses the services provided by the server. In other words, a client uses all the functionalities that the server is providing.

The design or model of data sharing between two or more devices in this way is called the client-server model or client-server architecture.

So we can say that in a network the server is a separate computer that is providing some service through the network. On the other hand, the client is another separate computer that connects to the server through the network and uses the services provided by the server.

One thing we need to know is that a computer can configure as a server and at the same time it can configure as a client. Simultaneously it can play both of the roles. For example, we can configure a laptop as a server. When we share a file over the network on our laptop then this laptop will act as a file server in our network.

There is some dedicated server computer available, which usually have a lot of Storage, RAM Space, and Processor Power than a normal computer. Not only that, there are some different operating systems available for the server computers such as Windows Server 2008, Linux Server, etc.

Companies that have hundreds of clients or have to give a reply of hundreds of crores of queries in a few seconds, in that case, dedicated server computers are needed which have high memory, high processor, or high storage capacity.