In general, people consider that client-server computing would consist of several desktop computers as clients with a powerful computer as the servers involving hardware entities. In fact, client-server computing involves software entities. As long as a client initiated a request and responded by a server would form a client-server architecture. That is a client can be a mid-range computer with a server installed in a less powerful desktop computer. Sometimes, the server can be installed at the client computer during developing application programmes. Only a client can initiate a request but not the server. However a server might refer requests to other servers during processing the request from a client. A client can make requests to multiple servers whereas a server can server multiple clients (Gallaugher, 1995). Client-server computing can simply be shown below:-
Figure 1 – Client/Server Transactions(Gallaugher 1995, p.3)
Reference
Gallaugher, J. (1995) The critical choice of client server architecture: A comparison of two and three tier systems. Retrieved March 3 2008 from http://www2.bc.edu/~gallaugh/research/ism95/cccsa.html
