Definitions: Enterprise Servers
Created on: Mar 4, 2009 9:06 AM by Arthur Cole - Last Modified: Dec 3, 2009 3:03 PM by Patrick Avery
Definition
The term “enterprise server” usually denotes a class of either hardware- or software-based server capable of handing the complex computing environment of a large enterprise.
Enterprise servers can be general processing machines that move application workloads between end-points, or they can be a specialized device such as a web server, print server or database server.
Business Applications
The enterprise server has become the workhorse of the modern office environment, largely replacing the big iron mainframesthat dominated from the 1960s to the early 1990s.
Most servers these days are built on commodity components and are capable of running all of the major server OS platforms like Microsoft Server 2003/2008, Linux and Mac OS X Server.
Deployment Concerns
The key concern in deploying servers is reliability. Since so much valuable data is entrusted to these machines, any downtime can seriously impact performance and, ultimately, profits.
Most server infrastructures are designed with a wide range of backup and failover systems so that if one device fails, both data and resources are available elsewhere with little or no interruption for the user.
Another major issue is server sprawl, which is essentially over-deployment of servers designed to accommodate short-term data processing needs. Many firms have turned to virtualization to consolidate the number of servers in their farms to gain greater hardware utilization rates and lower capital and operating costs, particularly energy consumption, in the bargain.
Technical details
Most of the technologies used to construct a server can be found in a standard workstation as well. So there is a CPU or set of CPUs embedded on a motherboard, with associated memory systems, networking components, a graphics/video card or cards and related power supply equipment.
A recent development is the blade server, which provides only the most basic server components to the motherboard and shifting much of the network and power systems to an outside enclosure where they are shared among other blades.
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