The advent of the internet has made personal computers constant companions of people of all ages, whether for work, learning, entertainment, business and commerce or simply browsing through the rich resources of the worldwide web.

Coming in different sizes and varying degrees of sophistication, personal computers range from the more familiar desktop or floor standing configurations to the portable laptop—all typically consisting of at least one system processor, associated memory, a display monitor, human interface devices such as mouse and keyboard, and fixed disk storage. Much smaller computers integrated in other consumer devices likewise range from a single microcontroller to a fully-functional computer system.

The rapidly growing list of applications for increasingly powerful computer devices are finding their way in different areas of business, industry, government, education, entertainment, and most recently, the home. As computer systems can be interconnected to form networks, their widespread deployment has led to correspondingly wider networks—resulting to the adoption of network based applications, web applications, web-based services, and the like.

To enable computer-to-computer data transfers, independent computer systems can be connected to a network consisting of at least a client workstation, a central network and a server. Widely used in huge enterprises and organizations, servers provide the advantages of larger data storage capacity, better system stability and better network-based applications functionality. In setups where multiple computers share large volumes of data, a server connected to the data network enables multiple simultaneous access to data stored within the network. Computer servers also provide a multitude of other functions and services to computer clients and other servers. A computer server, forming part of a network of servers and clients, receives data requests, transmits data and provides a wide variety of data processing services to clients and servers alike.

Rapid technological advances especially in the fields of electronics, super-conductivity and wireless connectivity results to more compact yet more powerful computers. With servers providing boosts to individual computers’ capacities, physical bulk no longer translates to better computing power.

About the Author

Marcos Garza is the owner of Global 1 Resources and is a computer and technology expert. In addition to being able to help you pick out a new laptop or choose the right kind of web hosting, Marcos and his company can supply your business with everything you need to manage an IT department.

Photo Credit: By Jimbo Wales (Own work) [GFDL (www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

No related posts.