Server Structures

The concept of servers is nearly as old as networking itself. After all, the point of a network is to allow one computer to talk to another computer and distribute either work or resources. Computing has evolved since then, resulting in several types of server structures and hardware.

The next major wave of servers included computer-based servers. In many respects, these servers were nothing more than larger, more powerful desktop computers. Such servers were generally more expensive and held far more memory and disk space than most client computers. Each server was still a self-contained unit with its own motherboard, processor, memory, disk drives, and power supply. Servers like this were often warehoused in air-conditioned rooms called server rooms, and were later bolted into racks for better storage and accessibility.