Final Essay

Introduction

Within this essay I will endeavour to showcase my knowledge surrounding internet servers and the technologies associated with them. I will discuss both the hardware and software linked with servers as well as comparing and evaluating the different services and protocols related to server use.

I will look to not only describe what I know in these areas but critically asses by showing how and where these technologies could be used as well as the potential pro’s and con’s to using them.

Servers can come in all different shapes and sizes and can run a variety of different software. Although the hardware a server runs on will usually fit into one of three categories, either rack mounted, blade or tower based. These three separate

Often what will define a tower server is the operating system, within a home environment this could consist of windows home server or windows server foundation in the case of a small business. Although, tower servers are also capable of acting as powerful servers and top end examples can include features such as Intel Xeon processors as well as high speed network cards and larger hard drives. An Intel Xeon processor for instance is designed specifically for server use where many actions need to be executed at once, this is achieved through the use of multiple cores and the ability to use multithreading (or Hyper-threading Intel's proprietary system) to enable a large number of tasks and programs to run simultaneously. See appendix

As well as assessing the fundamentals such as DNS and firewalls, I have also explored optional network additions such as RAID, groups and many forms of authentication. If implemented correctly, some of the ideas and technologies I have explored could help to provide a more stable, reliable network experience for the end user.

Through creating this essay I have become far more aware of the impact certain services and protocols have on server resources. This in-tern has highlighted to me how a users experience can suffer if a network isn't properly catered for in terms of hardware spec, optimised services and wisely chosen protocols.

Weighing up user performance/experience against security in particular, seems to be most common consideration a network administrator would have to make. This is apparent in terms of authenticating (speed vs. security), multiple logins (inconvenience vs. protection) and browsing (access vs. censorship). But when all these criteria are considered, a network can be an extremely powerful resource that users can utilise within schools, businesses and at