Types of Server

Types of Server is for the classification of the hardware or computers which runs the server software program in the framework of client-server architecture. Technically we often address the software running on these hardware as Server, i.e. Apache Web Server, which is actually the software which opens the way for the hardware or computer to serve the purpose. Types of Server, from various sense is difficult to classify in one unified classification.

Types of Server : Basics of Classification

In the article on What is a server  and several other articles points towards the classification of server. Server operating systems can be a basic for classifying the types of server or the web  software running on it. A server can be classified based on the hardware infrastructure – like blade server, rack server etc. However, none of them appears to be constant and we classify the types of servers based on network environment.

Types of Server : The usual Classification based on network environment

Application server : Server dedicated to run specific software applications

Catalog server : Central point for a distributed network

Communications server : Server acting as computing platform for communications network

Compute server : Intended for intensive computations

Database server : A server which only provides the database services to other computer programs or computers

Fax server : A server for fax services for the clients

File server : Provides remote access to files

Game server : A server that is optimized to play online games together

Name server or DNS Print server :  An intermediary for requests from clients seeking resources from other servers

Sound server : For streaming of sound over the Internet.

The Application server, usually HTTP server with LAMP setup (Linux-Apache-PHP-MySQL) can be divided again in to Virtual Private Server, Dedicated Server and Shared server based on the usage or business model.  So, the fact is, it is easy to get the question in mind – Types of Servers, but in practice, it is quite hard to answer because of overlapping technologies both in hardware and software side.