5.1 Description:
A computer network is referred to as client/server if at least one of the computers is used to "serve" other computers referred to as "clients". Besides the computers, other types of devices can be part of the network.
A computer network in which one centralized, powerful computer (called the server) is a hub to which many less powerful personal computers or workstations (called clients) are connected. The clients run programs and access data that are stored on the server. Compare peer-to-peer network.
In a client/server environment, each computer still holds (or can still hold) its (or some) resources and files. Other computers can also access the resources stored in a computer, as in a peer-to-peer scenario. One of the particularities of a client/server network is that the files and resources are centralized. This means that a computer, the server, can hold them and other computers can access them. Since the server is always ON, the client machines can access the files and resources without caring whether a certain computer is ON.
One of the consequences of a client/server network is that, if the server is turned OFF, its resources and sometimes most of the…show more content… Most business applications use the client/server model as does does the Internet's main program, TCP/IP. For example, when we check our bank account from our computer, a client program in our computer forwards a request to a server program at the bank. That program may in turn forward a request to its own client program, which then sends a request to a database server at another bank computer. Once our account balance has been retrieved from the database, it is returned back to the bank data client, which in turn serves it back to the client in our personal computer, which then displays the information to
