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Client Server Technical Documentation

Client-server is a computing architecture which separates a client from a server, and is almost always implemented over a computer network. Each client or server connected to a network can also be referred to as a node. The most basic type of client-server architecture employs only two types of nodes: clients and servers. This type of architecture is sometimes referred to as two-tier. It allows devices to share files and resources

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164 views

Client Server Technical Documentation

Client-server is a computing architecture which separates a client from a server, and is almost always implemented over a computer network. Each client or server connected to a network can also be referred to as a node. The most basic type of client-server architecture employs only two types of nodes: clients and servers. This type of architecture is sometimes referred to as two-tier. It allows devices to share files and resources

Uploaded by

jim
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Client-server is a computing architecture which separates a client from a server,

and is almost always implemented over a computer network. Each client or server
connected to a network can also be referred to as a node. The most basic type of
client-server architecture employs only two types of nodes: clients and servers. This
type of architecture is sometimes referred to as two-tier. It allows devices to share
files and resources.
Each instance of the client software can send data requests to one or more
connected servers. In turn, the servers can accept these requests, process them,
and return the requested information to the client. Although this concept can be
applied for a variety of reasons to many different kinds of applications, the
architecture remains fundamentally the same.
These days, clients are most often web browsers, although that has not always been
the case. Servers typically include web servers, database servers and mail servers.
Online gaming is usually client-server too. In the specific case of MMORPG, the
servers are typically operated by the company selling the game; for other games
one of the players will act as the host by setting his game in server mode.
The interaction between client and server is often described using sequence
diagrams. Sequence diagrams are standardized in the Unified Modeling Language.
Contents
[hide]

1 Characteristics
1.1 Characteristics of a client
1.2 Characteristics of a server
2 Multi-tiered architecture
3 Comparison to Peer-to-Peer Architecture
4 Comparison to Client-Queue-Client
Architecture
5 Advantages
6 Disadvantages

7 Examples
8 Notes
9 See also

[edit]

Characteristics

[edit]

Characteristics of a client
Initiates requests
Waits for and receives replies.
Usually connects to a small number of servers at one
time
Typically interacts directly with end-users using a
graphical user interface

[edit]

Characteristics of a server
Passive (slave)
Waits for requests from clients
Upon receipt of requests, processes them and then
serves replies
Usually accepts connections from a large number of
clients
Typically does not interact directly with end-users

[edit]

Multi-tiered architecture

Some designs are more sophisticated and consist of three different kinds of nodes:
clients, application servers which process data for the clients, and database servers
which store data for the application servers. This configuration is called a three-tier
architecture, and is the most commonly used type of client-server architecture.
Designs that contain more than two tiers are referred to as multi-tiered or n-tiered.

The advantages of n-tiered architectures is that they are far more scalable, since
they balance and distribute the processing load among multiple, often redundant,
specialized server nodes. This in turn improves overall system performance and
reliability, since more of the processing load can be accommodated simultaneously.
[1]

The disadvantages of n-tiered architectures include:


1. More load on the network itself, due to a greater
amount of network traffic.
2. More difficult to program and test than in two-tier
architectures because more devices have to
communicate in order to complete a client's
request.
[edit]

Comparison to Peer-to-Peer Architecture

Another type of network architecture is known as peer-to-peer, because each node


or instance of the program can simultaneously act as both a client and a server, and
because each has equivalent responsibilities and status. Peer-to-peer architectures
are often abbreviated using the acronym P2P.
Both client-server and P2P architectures are in wide usage today.
[edit]

Comparison to Client-Queue-Client Architecture

While classic Client-Server architecture requires one of communication endpoints to


act as a server, which is much harder to implement, Client-Queue-Client allows all
endpoints to be simple clients, while the server consists of some external software,
which also acts as passive queue (one software instance passes its query to
another instance to queue, e.g. database, and then this other instance pulls it from
database, makes a response, passes it to database etc.). This architecture allows
greatly simplified software implementation. Peer-to-Peer architecture was originally
based on Client-Queue-Client concept.
[edit]

Advantages
In most cases, a client-server architecture enables the
roles and responsibilities of a computing system to be

distributed among several independent computers that


are known to each other only through a network. This
creates an additional advantage to this architecture:
greater ease of maintenance. For example, it is
possible to replace, repair, upgrade, or even relocate a
server while its clients remain both unaware and
unaffected by that change. This independence from
change is also referred to as encapsulation.
All the data are stored on the servers, which generally
have far greater security controls than most clients.
Servers can better control access and resources, to
guarantee that only those clients with the appropriate
permissions may access and change data.
Since data storage is centralized, updates to those
data are far easier to administer than would be
possible under a P2P paradigm. Under a P2P
architecture, data updates may need to be distributed
and applied to each "peer" in the network, which is
both time-consuming and error-prone, as there can be
thousands or even millions of peers.
Many mature client-server technologies are already
available which were designed to ensure security,
'friendliness' of the user interface, and ease of use.
It functions with multiple different clients of different
capabilities.
[edit]

Disadvantages
Traffic congestion on the network has been an issue
since the inception of the client-server paradigm. As
the number of simultaneous client requests to a given
server increases, the server can become severely
overloaded. Contrast that to a P2P network, where its
bandwidth actually increases as more nodes are

added, since the P2P network's overall bandwidth can


be roughly computed as the sum of the bandwidths of
every node in that network.
The client-server paradigm lacks the robustness of a
good P2P network. Under client-server, should a
critical server fail, clients requests cannot be fulfilled.
In P2P networks, resources are usually distributed
among many nodes. Even if one or more nodes depart
and abandon a downloading file, for example, the
remaining nodes should still have the data needed to
complete the download.
[edit]

Examples

Imagine you are visiting an eCommerce web site. In this case, your computer and
web browser would be considered the client, while the computers, databases, and
applications that make up the online store would be considered the server. When
your web browser requests specific information from the online store, the server
finds all of the data in the database needed to satisfy the browser's request,
assembles that data into a web page, and transmits that page back to your web
browser for you to view.
Specific types of clients include web browsers, email clients, and online chat clients.
Specific types of servers include web servers, application servers, database servers,
mail servers, file servers, print servers, and terminal servers. Most web services are
also types of servers.
[edit]

Notes
1. ^ This form of scalability is called horizontal
scalability. There is substantial and growing
criticism that horizontal scalability is limiting as
applications become more complex and
interdependent, particularly in the areas of network
latency, reliability, and manageability. IBM, in
particular, takes this view and promotes both
vertical and horizontal scalability. Vertical

scalability implements fewer servers able to


support multiple application and database tiers,
and multiple applications, concurrently. The IBM
System z is the most notable example of a
vertically scalable system.

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