A server is a computer program that provides services to other computer programs (and their users) in the same or other computers. The computer that a server program runs in is also referred to as a server.

Servers can be broadly classified into Dedicated servers and Non-dedicated servers.

1. Dedicated servers:

A computer exclusively reserved for the server’s job and its only job is to help workstations to access data, software and hardware resources. The term “dedicated server” can also mean a single computer within a network that is reserved for a specific purpose.

For example, within a network, you could have a computer dedicated to printer resources, another computer dedicated to Internet connections, another computer serving as a firewall, etc. These computers would all be dedicated servers, as the whole computer is allocated for a specific task within the network.

2. Non-dedicated servers:
A computer in a network acts as a server as well as a workstation is called a non-dedicated server. It is server upon which applications are available, and also network management software runs in the background. Non-dedicated servers are common in peer-to-peer networks. A peer to peer network is a network without a dedicated server. It is composed entirely of workstations that can be set up to share some of their services, like printers or files. These computers require more memory and work slower. It is suitable for small networks.