List three computer systems types and specify how they differ from each other.?

Question

Give an example of a business situation in which each one would be used.

Answer 1

Computer system types is a bit vague in this question, but I am going to assume a more general criteria when answering this.

One type would be a client computer which may or may not be a dumb terminal. These computers are designed to run local applications for users. These computers are great for taking load off a central computer and these computers can be located all over the place. As for a business situation, these computers are usually the type that sit on a staff person's desk to handle their excel, word, powerpoint, image, and other files specific to their job.

Another type is a file server or web server. These types of computers usually carry more processing power, larger hard drives, more RAM and are designed to serve files to client computers across a network. This network can be a local network, wide area network (wan) or the Internet. File servers specialize in files while a web server specializes in serving web content like HTML files, XML, images for pages, video, scripts etc. A business situation where they would need these are serving web pages, fetching search results on your local network, or providing you that word document that a colleague of yours just worked on last week.

A third type of computer can be a mainframe or database server. These types of servers are primarily used for number crunching, central data storage, and serving statistical information. They consist of a mix of server software, database software (like oracle, SQL server, MySQL, etc), and have a large amount of storage capacity. Mainframes are expensive so most of the time you find these computers at large companies like oil, aviation, or universities which need to process large mathematical problems. Database servers are a bit more common and are usually used with web servers for storing data. Yahoo I am sure has several database servers to store this very answer I am giving you right now. A business situation that would use a mainframe would be at Boeing they use mainframes to help simulate drag, friction, and direction of wind across the airplane body of a new jet.

I know the answer is somewhat long, but hopefully it gets you the answer you need. Enjoy!