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</SPAN>Servers<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns =
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</SPAN>I have wanted a simple easy to understand description of what servers are
and what they do.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Here is what I
have figured out.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
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</SPAN>After reading the discussions about servers I looked in catalogs and read
the descriptions of the servers that they had to offer.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>A server is very much like an ordinary
personal computer except it is larger and may have several very large hard
drives to provide a lot of memory.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>There has to be some way that other servers or computers can connect to
it and communicate with it.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>An
ordinary personal computer could be used as a server but it couldn't store very
much information.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
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</SPAN>One server model may have a full tower case, large power supply, special
motherboard with two to four microprocessors, and six 10,000 rpm SCSI hard
drives four of which are hot-swappable (can be changed while the server is
operating).<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>They cost about
$6,000.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
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</SPAN>Several servers may be involved in routing a call from your computer to
its destination.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>One server may be
able to handle the calls from several computers at the same time.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>A group of several servers may be
located in one place and do different things and more than one can be loaded
with the same data so that if one server fails another can take over or more
than one server can share the traffic.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoBodyText style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=5><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>As the
Encyclopedia gets larger and activity increases Wikipedia will probably need
more and more server capacity.</FONT></P>
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</SPAN>Merritt L. Perkins<SPAN style="mso-tab-count: 1"> </SPAN><SPAN
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