Tendete a servire o a essere serviti?

Un SERVER è un computer a disposizione di tutto il suo popolo dei CLIENT, sempre pronto a soddisfare ogni richiesta per cui è stato predisposto. Esso fornisce informazioni su richiesta, comunicandole in modo rigidamente formalizzato. 

In pratica un server permette ad un client (il vostro browser: Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera o altro) di collegarsi mediante la porta virtuale e di richiedere informazioni seguendo una precisa disciplina.

 

Immaginate un funzionario presente all'interno di un ufficio aperto al pubblico. Immaginate anche che questo funzionario sia espertissimo, solerte, democratico, ma rigido nelle applicare le regole e completamente ottuso a ciò che non conosce. ... questo è un SERVER. Se voi avete bisogno di comunicare con quel funzionario, dovete rispettare le sue regole e i suoi tempi ... altrimenti non vi capisce e vi manda al diavolo!

Nella vita quotidiana anche noi umani ci alterniamo nei ruoli di client e server.

Nel mondo dei computer questo modo di fare permette loro di comunicare con disciplina e di utilizzare al meglio le loro risorse.

Le macchine non si stancano, non vanno sotto stress; attendono soltanto che l'usura completi il ciclo di vita.

Per gli umani, esistono le strutture delle relazioni interpersonali, complicate al massimo, che rendono instabile, incerta, precaria, la funzione di ogni singolo individuo nella rete mondiale formata da oltre sette miliardi di host.   

Per gli amanti della lingua inglese (come me), ecco lo stesso argomento spiegato tecnicamente in inglese:

Client/server describes the relationship between two computer programs in which one program, the client, makes a service request from another program, the server, which fulfills the request. Although the client/server idea can be used by programs within a single computer, it is a more important idea in a network. In a network, the client/server model provides a convenient way to interconnect programs that are distributed efficiently across different locations. 

Computer transactions using the client/server model are very common. For example, to check your bank account from your computer, a client program in your computer forwards your request to a server program at the bank. That program may in turn forward the request to its own client program that sends a request to a database server at another bank computer to retrieve your account balance. 

The balance is returned back to the bank data client, which in turn serves it back to the client in your personal computer, which displays the information for you.

The client/server model has become one of the central ideas of network computing. Most business applications being written today use the client/server model. So does the Internet's main program, TCP/IP.

In marketing, the term has been used to distinguish distributed computing by smaller dispersed computers from the "monolithic" centralized computing of mainframe computers. But this distinction has largely disappeared as mainframes and their applications have also turned to the client/server model and become part of network computing. 

In the usual client/server model, one server, sometimes called a daemon is activated and awaits client requests. Typically, multiple client programs share the services of a common server program. Both client programs and server programs are often part of a larger program or application. Relative to the Internet, your Web browser is a client program that requests services (the sending of Web pages or files) from a Web server (which technically is called a Hypertext Transport Protocol or HTTP server) in another computer somewhere on the Internet. 

Similarly, your computer with TCP/IP installed allows you to make client requests for files from File Transfer Protocol (FTP) servers in other computers on the Internet.

Other program relationship models included master/slave, with one program being in charge of all other programs, and peer-to-peer, with either of two programs able to initiate a transaction.