Network Server is a computer or a device within a network that controls the network traffic. A server can be the combination of any or all the components:
hardware, application
software,
operating system and
network services and connections. As a whole Server is an
embedded system that performs the specified task related to the controlled network. Servers in a network share the resources with other computers, called as clients, in the network. For the large scale business reliability is a big issue. Therefore one can buy servers only from Branded Resellers.
When it comes to operating systems for servers, Sun, SGI and HP have proven themselves the most stable operating systems. Microsoft Windows also has series of OS servers like Windows Server 2003 or 2003. Intel microprocessor architecture is supported by Unix Operating System including Linux, FreeBSD and Solaris. Depending on a kind of controlled network resources servers can be divided as follows:
Web Server
A web server within a network serves the content across the network and loads in the user's web browser. The duty of web server is to control the exchange between browser and server. In short web server provides services to web browsers used in the office, home or business computers. Turn any computer to web server by installing web sever software. The best way is to develop an embedded system as a web server.
Working
Connect to the Internet and type a URL in your web browser. You receive the required page. The web server does all. The web browser breaks the URL in three parts. Protocol, name server and file name.
Protocol
The protocol is the set of rules that define how web server and web browser communicate.
All the web servers on Internet use HTTP (hyper text terminal protocol).
Name Server, IP address and Port
Name server or the set of web servers, known as DNS (domain name serve) translate the human language to an IP address. IP (Internet Protocol) address is required to connect a client to the server.
Browser communicates with the DNS and gets connected to the web server at IP address on a specific port. The ports define the services within a network server. If a network uses number of servers such as web server, file server or other servers. Then port number such as 80 identifies the web server and 81 for file server.
Web browser then uses HTTP to send get request to the server for the file at URL. The server loads the file at web browser. There may be security issues related to the file (web page).
File Server
File Server is an embedded system that controls the file exchange within a network. It can be a computer running FTP protocol. FTP is used to exchange files within a network, which supports TCP/IP protocol such as in Internet. FTP server accepts requests from other computers in the network. Also known as FTP clients. Clients send request to FTP server. The server responds to the request. Different operations can be applied such as uploading files to the server or downloading files from the server. FTP protocol is an open source so any one can develop FTP clients and FTP servers.
