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NETWORK TERMINOLOGY © Signals: A signal as referred to in communication systems is a function that conveys information about the behavior or attributes of some phenomenon". In acommunication system, a transmitter encodes a message into a signal, which is carried to areceiverby the communications channel. Analog signal and Digital signal An analog signal is any continuous signal for which the time varying feature (variable) of the signal is a representation of some other time varying quantity. It differs from a digital signal in terms of small fluctuations in the signal which are meaningful. Analog is usually thought of in an electrical context; however, mechanical, pneumatic, hydraulic, and other systems may also convey analog signals. e Server: Aserver is a computer program running to serve the requests of other programs, In most common use, server is a physical computer dedicated to running one or more such services , to serve the needs of users of the other computers on the network. Depending on the computing service that it offers it could be a database server, file server, mail server, print server, web server, gaming server, or some other kind of server. e Server Farm : Aserver farm or server cluster is a collection of computer servers usually maintained by an enterprise to accomplish server needs far beyond the capability of one machine. Server farms often have backup servers, which can take over the function of primary servers in the event of a primary server failure. Server farms are typically colocated with the network switches and/or routers which enable communication between the different parts of the cluster and the users of the cluster. The computers, routers, power supplies, and related electronics are typically mounted on 19-inch racks in a server room or data center. e@ Blade Server : Ablade serveris a stripped-down server computer with amodular design optimized to minimize the use of physical space and energy. Whereas a standard rack-mount server can function with (at least) a power cord and network cable, blade servers have many components removed to save space, minimize power consumption and other considerations, while still having all the functional components to be considered a computer. e Client : Aclient is an application or system that accesses a service made available by a server. The server is often on another computer system, in which case the client accesses the service by way of a network. The term was first applied to devices that were not capable of running their own stand-alone programs, but could interact with remote computers via a network. e Thick/Fat Client : A fat client, also known as a rich client or thick client, is a client that performs the bulk of any data processing operations itself, and does not necessarily rely on the server. The fat client is most common in the form of a personal computer, as the personal computers or laptops can operate independently. 
