A network architecture in which each computer or process on the network is either a client or a server.

Servers are powerful computers or processesdedicated to managing disk drives (file servers), printers (print servers), or network traffic (network servers ). Clients are PCs or workstations on whichusers run applications. Clients rely on servers for resources, such as files,devices, and even processing power. Another type of network architecture is known as a peer-to-peer architecture because each node has equivalent responsibilities. Both client/server and peer-to-peer architectures are widely used, and each has unique advantages and disadvantages. Client-server architectures are sometimes called two-tier architectures.

client/server

E-mail This A Print AAA AA Facebook LinkedIn Share Twitter Reprints Client/server describes the relationship between two computer programs in which one program, the client, makes a service request from another program, the server, which fulfills the request. Although the client/server idea can be used by programs within a single computer, it is a more important idea in a network. In a network, the client/server model provides a convenient way to interconnect programs that are distributed efficiently across different locations. Computer transactions using the client/server model are very common. For example, to check your bank account from your computer, a client program in your computer forwards your request to a server program at the bank. That program may in turn forward the request to its own client program that sends a request to a database server at another bank computer to retrieve your account balance. The balance is returned back to the bank data client, which in turn serves it back to the client in your personal computer, which displays the information for you. The client/server model has become one of the central ideas of network computing. Most business applications being written today use the client/server model. So does the Internet's main program,TCP/IP. In marketing, the term has been used to distinguish distributed computing by smaller dispersed computers from the "monolithic" centralized

computing ofmainframe computers. But this distinction has largely disappeared as mainframes and their applications have also turned to the client/server model and become part of network computing. In the usual client/server model, one server, sometimes called adaemon , is activated and awaits client requests. Typically, multiple client programs share the services of a common server program. Both client programs and server programs are often part of a larger program or application. Relative to the Internet, your Web browser is a client program that requests services (the sending of Web pages or files) from a Web server (which technically is called a Hypertext Transport Protocol or HTTP server) in another computer somewhere on the Internet. Similarly, your computer with TCP/IP installed allows you to make client requests for files from File Transfer Protocol (FTP) servers in other computers on the Internet. Other program relationship models included master/slave, with one program being in charge of all other programs, and peer-to-peer, with either of two programs able to initiate a transaction.

client-server architecture
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, Architecture of a computer network in which many clients (remote processors) request and receive service from a centralized server (host computer). Client computers provide an interface to allow a computer user to request services of the server and to display the results the server returns. Servers wait for requests to arrive from clients and then respond to them. Ideally, a server provides a standardized transparent interface to clients so that clients need not be aware of the specifics of the system (i.e., the hardware and software) that is providing the service. Today clients are often situated at workstations or on personal computers, while servers are located elsewhere on the network, usually on more powerful machines. This computing model is especially

effective when clients and the server each have distinct tasks that they routinely perform. In hospital data processing, for example, a client computer can be running an application program for entering patient information while the server computer is running another program that manages the database in which the information is permanently stored. Many clients can access the servers information simultaneously, and, at the same time, a client computer can perform other tasks, such as sending email. Because both client and server computers are considered intelligent devices, the client-server model is completely different from the old mainframe model, which utilized a centralized mainframe computer that performed all the tasks for its associated dumb terminals.

The basics of the client-server model are in the name; It is a system that includes a client and a server, and the client-server model works as a series of transactions between the two. The client initiates the transaction by sending a request to the server, and the server, which is always in a state of readiness to accept requests, responds by providing a service or

resource to the client. That is the core principle of the client-server model. In most implementations of client-server architecture, the server is one or a few, and the clients are many. This centralization of resources and services with the server is the main utility of this paradigm and is how it was first introduced into the digital realm.

In the middle of the 20th century, when complex electronic devices first became viable, computers were large, rare and expensive beasts. Even with the advent of transistor technology to replace the old vacuum-tube based circuitry, computers could only be afforded by large number-crunching organisations, and universities that needed them to train a new breed of engineer and scientist. These places often had one computer, with less processing power than your average smart-phone today, occupying an entire climatecontrolled room. But the people who needed to access the one computer were many, and so the idea of multiple dumb terminals was invented. These were simple workstations that had little more than a screen and a keyboard, and many of these could be connected to the one main-frame computer so that many users could access its, at the time, staggering processing power. A lone user could rarely throw enough at the processor or work fast enough to keep the computer occupied to its full capacity, so the limited resource was shared. The dumb terminal was a client that requested a response from the singular computer server, and thus the client-server model was born as a practical solution to

resource sharing. The resources to be shared included the processing power of the computer and also the storage of data. In the early days magnetic storage, first tape and then disc drives, was centralised. The idea of personal, portable or removable storage mediums, even as seemingly primitive as the floppy disc, were a long way away.

It was in this original spirit of sharing limited computing resources, that the idea ofnetworking was born. If a university managed to get two computers, imagine the leap in their computing capabilities if they could get the two beasts to complement each other. The possibilities were astonishing, so connections were made and the client-server architecture was the logical organisation for it. One computer made a request of the other. The computer receiving the request carried out the required action or accessed the requested data and sent a response ending the transaction. It was an elegant solution, if you think about it; Neither computer would be held up by this transaction any longer than was required to send and fulfil the request, and then the processing power could be returned to their other local tasks. Eventually the idea of networking between the precious computing power of universities and government organisations began to follow more organised patterns and universal standardised protocols, and what we call the internet was born of it.

When you browse the web today, your browser software on your desktop computer or mobile device is the client. In the simplified transaction, for the sake of explanation, you enter a URL into your browser to visit a website. Your browser, the client, connects to the computer that holds the website you want to visit, the server, and sends a request for the website using a standard called the Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (hence http://). The server accepts this request and sends a response to your browser along with the requested data if available. If you entered the right address and the website is live, the server sends the browser the appropriate HTML page and you see the homepage on your screen. If there was an error, the server responds with an error code, such as 404, when it cant find the page you requested. That, in a nutshell, is the client-server architecture of the world wide web in action.

An important point to grasp here is that client and server are not fixed and unchanging entities, but merely the roles played by devices and software during a particular transaction. A device that is a server for one transaction can then switch to being a client in another. To continue with our example of the browser and the web server, when the computer that stores the website receives a request for a page from your browser, it is behaving as a server and responds directly if the page to be displayed is static HTML. However, if the website is a dynamic one, based on a content management system such as WordPress or Drupal, the data is not stored as static HTML files but rather in a database, often located on a separate computer that hosts multiple databases for efficiency. At this point in the transaction the original web server becomes a client and sends a request for data to a MySQL database server. Once the web server receives the requested data from the database server, it reverts to being a server in the original transaction and sends the page to your browser where it is displayed. These client and server modes of a particular device are usually happening concurrently, with multiple transactions in progress, rather than that simplified consecutive way described here, but this should have made the sometimes fluid nature of the clientserver relationship clear. Client-server architecture is not limited to web servers on the internet. It is the standard model of device interaction in a whole range of digital services where resources and

transactions are accessed on demand, rather than as a dumb broadcast. The client-server model is how a lot of our technological world works. Understanding it gives you an essential insight into the workings of content management methods, content delivery networks and global digital communication itself.