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Question: What is a server?

Answer: A server is a computer and/or a software package that provides requested information to clients.

A server takes requests and returns information. It is there to serve information. When you are talking about a server, you could be referring to either the software or the hardware.

There are different kinds of servers. A single hardware server could have several different types of server software packages running on it. Depending on the traffic, you could have a web server, FTP server, e-mail server, or chat server (to name a few) running on a single hardware server. The client that is requesting services must match the type of service that it is connecting to.

Question: Can a computer that is set up as a server be used for other tasks?

    Answer: Yes, depending on the amount of activity that the server encounters, it is possible. Most computers have personal web servers available as an option. Since you probably wouldn't have thousands of people accessing a personal web server, it can be running in the background with little affect on the performance of the computer.
Question: Are there different kinds of servers?

    Answer: Yes, for both software and hardware.

    Software - servers are available for web, e-mail, FTP, chat, IRC, and many others.

    Hardware - servers are available on many platforms UNIX, Mac, Windows 95/98, Windows NT, LINUX to mention a few.

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