WHAT IS A SERVER?

A server is a computer or system that provides resources, data, services, or programs to other computers, known as clients, over a network. In theory, whenever computers share resources with client machines they are considered servers. There are many types of servers, including web servers, mail servers, and virtual servers.

An individual system can provide resources and use them from another system at the same time. This means that a device could be both a server and a client at the same time.

Some of the first servers were mainframe computers or minicomputers. Minicomputers were much smaller than mainframe computers, hence the name. However, as technology progressed, they ended up becoming much larger than desktop computers, which made the term microcomputer somewhat farcical.

Initially, such servers were connected to clients known as terminals that did not do any actual computing. These terminals, referred to as dumb terminals, existed simply to accept input via a keyboard or card reader and to return the results of any computations to a display screen or printer. The actual computing was done on the server.

Later, servers were often single, powerful computers connected over a network to a set of less-powerful client computers. This network architecture is often referred to as the client-server model, in which both the client computer and the server possess computing power, but certain tasks are delegated to servers. In previous computing models, such as the mainframe-terminal model, the mainframe did act as a server even though it wasn’t referred to by that name

HOW A SERVER WORKS

To function as a server, a device must be configured to listen to requests from clients on a network connection. This functionality can exist as part of the operating system as an installed application, role, or a combination of the two.

For example, Microsoft’s Windows Server operating system provides the functionality to listen to and respond to client requests. Additionally installed roles or services increase which kinds of client requests the server can respond to. In another example, an Apache web server responds to Internet browser requests via an additional application, Apache, installed on top of an operating system.

When a client requires data or functionality from a server, it sends a request over the network. The server receives this request and responds with the appropriate information. This is the request and response model of client-server networking, also known as the call and response model.

A server will often perform numerous additional tasks as part of a single request and response, including verifying the identity of the requestor, ensuring that the client has permission to access the data or resources requested, and properly formatting or returning the required response in an expected way.

TYPES OF SERVERS

There are many types of servers that all perform different functions. Many networks contain one or more of the common server types:

File servers

File servers store and distribute files. Multiple clients or users may share files stored on a server. In addition, centrally storing files offers easier backup or fault tolerance solutions than attempting to provide security and integrity for files on every device in an organization. File server hardware can be designed to maximize read and write speeds to improve performance.

Print servers

Print servers allow for the management and distribution of printing functionality. Rather than attaching a printer to every workstation, a single print server can respond to printing requests from numerous clients. Today, some larger and higher-end printers come with their own built-in print server, which removes the need for an additional computer-based print server. This internal print server also functions by responding to print requests from a client.

Application servers

Application servers run applications in lieu of client computers running applications locally. Application servers often run resource-intensive applications that are shared by a large number of users. Doing so removes the need for each client to have sufficient resources to run the applications. It also removes the need to install and maintain software on many machines as opposed to only one.

DNS servers

Domain Name System (DNS) servers are application servers that provide name resolution to client computers by converting names easily understood by humans into machine-readable IP addresses. The DNS system is a widely distributed database of names and other DNS servers, each of which can be used to request an otherwise unknown computer name. When a client needs the address of a system, it sends a DNS request with the name of the desired resource to a DNS server. The DNS server responds with the necessary IP address from its table of names.

Mail servers

Mail servers are a very common type of application server. Mail servers receive emails sent to a user and store them until requested by a client on behalf of said user. Having an email server allows for a single machine to be properly configured and attached to the network at all times. It is then ready to send and receive messages rather than requiring every client machine to have its own email subsystem continuously running.

Web servers

One of the most abundant types of servers in today’s market is a web server. A web server is a special kind of application server that hosts programs and data requested by users across the Internet or an intranet. Web servers respond to requests from browsers running on client computers for web pages, or other web-based services. Common web servers include Apache web servers, Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) servers and Nginx servers.

Database servers

The amount of data used by companies, users, and other services is staggering. Much of that data is stored in databases. Databases need to be accessible to multiple clients at any given time and can require extraordinary amounts of disk space. Both of these needs lend themselves well to locating such databases on servers. Database servers run database applications and respond to numerous requests from clients. Common database server applications include Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, DB2, and Informix.

Virtual servers

Virtual servers are taking the server world by storm. Unlike traditional servers that are installed as an operating system on machine hardware, virtual servers exist only as defined within specialized software called hypervisor. Each hypervisor can run hundreds, or even thousands, of virtual servers all at once. The hypervisor presents virtual hardware to the server as if it were real physical hardware. The virtual server uses the virtual hardware as usual, and the hypervisor passes the actual computation and storage needs onto the real hardware beneath, which is shared among all the other virtual servers.

Proxy servers

A proxy server acts as an intermediary between a client and a server. Often used to isolate either the clients or servers for security purposes, a proxy server takes the request from the client. Instead of responding to the client, it passes the request on to another server or process. The proxy server receives the response from the second server and then replies to the original client as if it were replying on its own. In this way, neither the client nor the responding server needs to directly connect to each other.

Monitoring and management servers

Some servers exist to monitor or manage other systems and clients. There are many types of monitoring servers. Several of them listen to the network and receive every client request and server response, but some do not request or respond to data themselves. In this way, the monitoring server can keep track of all the traffic on the network, as well as the requests and replies of clients and servers, without interfering with those operations. A monitoring server will respond to requests from monitoring clients such as those run by network administrators watching the health of the network.

FEATURES OF SERVER OPERATING SYSTEM

Some of the key features of a server operating system include:

• Ability to access the server both in GUI and command-level interface
• Execute all or most processes from OS commands
• Advanced-level hardware, software and network configuration services
• Install/deploy business applications and/or web applications
• Provides central interface to manage users, implement security and other administrative processes
• Manages and monitors client computers and/or operating systems

WINDOWS SERVER 2012

Windows Server 2012 is the sixth version of the Windows Server operating system by Microsoft, as part of the Windows NT family of operating systems.

What is the use of Windows Server 2012?

Windows Server 2012 has an IP address management role for discovering, monitoring, auditing, and managing the IP address space used on a corporate network. The IPAM is used for the management and monitoring of Domain Name System (DNS) and Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) servers.

How to Install Windows Server 2012

1. Download Windows Server 2012 – http://aka.ms/getwin2012

2. Follow Step-By-Step Instructions to configure BIOS – Configure BIOS Before Installing Windows Server 2012 and Hyper-V

3. Press ENTER to boot from DVD.

Files will start loading.

4. Take the defaults on the Language screen, and click Next.

5. Click Install now on the install screen.

6. Click the second line item for the GUI. The default install is now Server Core. Then click Next.

7. Read License Agreement, Turn on Checkbox “I accept the license terms,” and then click Next.

8. Click Custom: Install Windows only (Advanced).

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9. The disk you are using should be listed. If not, you will need to Load driver. Select the disk you will be installing on. If you do not want to change drive options (optional), Click Next. If you want to use Dual boot using Native Boot To VHD (Boot2VHD), see below:

10. [Optional:] Click drive options; then you can create custom partitions.

11. [Optional:] Add a drive using Native Boot To Vhd: SHIFT-F10 to open a command prompt window; Find installation drive (dir c:, dir d:, dir e:, etc). Diskpart to open the Disk Partition Utility (the first four lines below are all the same command and must run on the same line, separated here to make it easier to read).Create vdisk file=e:\BootDemo.vhd type=expandable maximum=40000. Attach disk. Exit. Then Refresh.

12. It will then start copying files. This will take a while (could be 20 mins or so depending on hardware performance).It will reboot a couple times (automatically). After the first reboot, it will no longer be running off of the DVD.

13. In the Password box, enter a new password for this computer. It must meet complexity requirements. Re-enter the password in the second password box, and then click Finish.

14. Press Ctrl-Alt-Delete at the same time to get the login screen

15. Enter password and press enter.

The Desktop will be displayed and Server Manager will be opened automatically.

16. Pressing Windows Key on the keyboard will bring up the start screen (formerly known as Start Menu). If you Right-Click on Computer, you will see the new right-click menu is on the bottom of the screen instead of in a dropdown box. Select Properties.

17. You will see that the System Properties screen looks almost identical to prior versions of windows. We can now change the computer name by clicking on Change Settings.

18. Type new computer name you would like to use and click OK.

19. Click OK on the information box. Click OK to allow a restart.

20. Then click Restart Now on the final dialog box.

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21. When the computer restarts it will have the new name, just login.

Summary

Now that you’ve set up your Windows Server 2012 system, you can go ahead with the first five fixes, or create a storage pool, or add it as a Domain Controller.