Dedicated Servers and Peers
In some networks, a server computer is a server computer and nothing else. It’s dedicated to the sole task of providing shared resources, such as hard drives and printers, to be accessed by the network client computers. Such a server is referred to as a dedicated server because it can perform no other task besides network services.
Other networks take an alternative approach, enabling any computer on the network to function as both a client and a server. Thus, any computer can share its printers and hard drives with other computers on the network. And while a computer is working as a server, you can still use that same computer for other functions such as word processing. This type of network is called a peer-to-peer network, because all the computers are thought of as peers, or equals.
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