Database Servers

[sunny]

What do you think about using a Database server? instead of using it as a File server

[Gurtej]

It is possible to use servers as database servers as well as file servers as per your needs. If you are using a server to host your website, it is also possible to host the the website files as well as the databases on the same server and hence you need not consider another server for hosting the databases.

[Chaitram]

when the organization is completely based on the data, or it is company having offices all around globe which consistently needs to access a huge amount of data, having DB server at such instances is Worth

[Admin]

File server is lot easier to save storage resources and is centralized. This makes it easier to access the server database at any point of time.

[jack]

So far FIleServer is concerned if the frequency of changes made to the data are less then File Server is OK but if your data is to be modified most frequently then I would like to suggest Database server which has better capability of writing the data more efficiently causing in improving the disk efficiency.

[Nicholas]

A file server is a high-speed computer in a network which is responsible for storing the programs and data files shared by users. It acts like a remote disk drive. The difference between a file server and an application server is that the file server stores the programs and data, while the application server runs the programs and processes the data.

Basically a File Server is expected to fulfill the below listed 4 Roles:

• A basic file server runs only the processes that store and delivers AFS files to client machines. One can run as many basic file server machines as you need to satisfy your cell's performance and disk space requirements.

• A database server runs the four database server processes that maintain AFS's replicated administrative databases: the Authentication, Backup, Protection, and Volume Location (VL) Server processes.

• A binary distribution machine distributes the AFS server binaries for its system type to all other server machines of that system type.

• The single system control machine distributes common server configuration files to all other server machines in the cell, in a cell that runs the United States edition of AFS (cells that use the international edition of AFS must not use the system control machine for this purpose). The machine conventionally also serves as the time synchronization source for the cell, adjusting its clock according to a time source outside the cell.

Note : AFS : AFS is a distributed filesystem that enables co-operating hosts
(clients and servers) to efficiently share filesystem resources
across both local area and wide area networks.
AFS Cell :An AFS cell is a collection of servers grouped together administratively
and presenting a single, cohesive filesystem.

[sunny]

That was a great explanation Nicholas

[Admin]

Many supportboard and billing systems providing assistance to many hosting companies are moving to file server hosting rather than database servers.

[Sudhan]

Using a Server as a File server or a DB server actually can depend on the files and amount of data.
DB servers are avoided because of complexity and performance issues. File server is a easy option for users

[mountainman]

We will get more benefits with Database Server compare to File server because of Database Server provides data access via native relational SQL or direct navigational commands and as this server is easy to install and manage, there is no database administrator required.