12

TVL – ICT
(Computer Systems Servicing)
Activity Sheet – Quarter 3 – Week 4
Configure Network Services - A

REGION VI - WESTERN VISAYAS

 Quarter 3, Week 4

Learning Activity Sheets (LAS) No.7

Name of Learner: ___________________________________________________

Grade and Section: _________________________ Date: ___________________

TVL – ICT (Computer Systems Servicing) ACTIVITY SHEET

Configure Network Services – A

I. Learning Competency
LO 2 . Set-up user access:
2.1 Check normal server function in accordance with manufacturer’s
instructions
2.2 Install and update required modules/add-ons on the NOS installation
procedures
2.3 Confirm network services based on user/system requirements
2.4 Check operation of network services based on user/system
requirements
2.5 Respond to unplanned events or conditions in accordance with
established procedures
Code: TLE_IACSS9-12SUCS-IIIf-j-IVa-j-38

II. Background Information for Learners

CONFIGURE NETWORK SERVICES – A

What is a server?

A server is a computer or system that provides resources, data, services,

or programs to other computers, known as clients, over a network. In theory,
whenever computers share resources with client machines they are considered
servers. There are many types of servers, including web servers, mail servers,
and virtual servers.
An individual system can provide resources and use them from another
system at the same time. This means that a device could be both a server and a
client at the same time.
Some of the first servers were mainframe computers or minicomputers.
Minicomputers were much smaller than mainframe computers, hence the name.
However, as technology progressed, they ended up becoming much larger than
desktop computers, which made the term microcomputer somewhat farcical.
Initially, such servers were connected to clients known as terminals that
did not do any actual computing. These terminals, referred to as dumb
terminals, existed simply to accept input via a keyboard or card reader and to

1
return the results of any computations to a display screen or printer. The actual
computing was done on the server.
Later, servers were often single, powerful computers connected over a
network to a set of less-powerful client computers. This network architecture is
often referred to as the client-server model, in which both the client computer
and the server possess computing power, but certain tasks are delegated to
servers. In previous computing models, such as the mainframe-terminal model,
the mainframe did act as a server even though it wasn’t referred to by that name.
As technology has evolved, the definition of a server has evolved with it.
These days, a server may be nothing more than software running on one or more
physical computing devices. Such servers are often referred to as virtual servers.
Originally, virtual servers were used to increase the number of server functions
a single hardware server could do. Today, virtual servers are often run by a third-
party on hardware across the Internet in an arrangement called cloud
computing.
A server may be designed to do a single task, such as a mail server, which
accepts and stores email and then provides it to a requesting client. Servers may
also perform several tasks, such as a file and print server, which both stores files
and accepts print jobs from clients and then sends them on to a network-
attached printer.
How a server works

To function as a server, a device must be configured to listen to requests

from clients on a network connection. This functionality can exist as part of the
operating system as an installed application, role, or a combination of the two.
For example, Microsoft’s Windows Server operating system provides the
functionality to listen to and respond to client requests. Additionally, installed
roles or services increase which kinds of client requests the server can respond
to. In another example, an Apache web server responds to Internet browser
requests via an additional application, Apache, installed on top of an operating
system.
When a client requires data or functionality from a server, it sends a
request over the network. The server receives this request and responds with the
appropriate information. This is the request and response model of client-server
networking, also known as the call and response model.
A server will often perform numerous additional tasks as part of a single
request and response, including verifying the identity of the requestor, ensuring
that the client has permission to access the data or resources requested, and
properly formatting or returning the required response in an expected way.

Types of servers
There are many types of servers that all perform different functions. Many
networks contain one or more of the common server types:

File servers
File servers store and distribute files. Multiple clients or users may share
files stored on a server. In addition, centrally storing files offers easier backup or
fault tolerance solutions than attempting to provide security and integrity for
files on every device in an organization. File server hardware can be designed to
maximize read and write speeds to improve performance.

Print servers
Print servers allow for the management and distribution of printing
functionality. Rather than attaching a printer to every workstation, a single print

2
server can respond to printing requests from numerous clients. Today, some
larger and higher-end printers come with their own built-in print server, which
removes the need for an additional computer-based print server. This internal
print server also functions by responding to print requests from a client.

Application servers
Application servers run applications in lieu of client computers running
applications locally. Application servers often run resource-intensive
applications that are shared by a large number of users. Doing so removes the
need for each client to have sufficient resources to run the applications. It also
removes the need to install and maintain software on many machines as opposed
to only one.

DNS servers
Domain Name System (DNS) servers are application servers that provide
name resolution to client computers by converting names easily understood by
humans into machine-readable IP addresses. The DNS system is a widely
distributed database of names and other DNS servers, each of which can be used
to request an otherwise unknown computer name. When a client needs the
address of a system, it sends a DNS request with the name of the desired
resource to a DNS server. The DNS server responds with the necessary IP
address from its table of names.

Mail servers
Mail servers are a very common type of application server. Mail servers
receive emails sent to a user and store them until requested by a client on behalf
of said user. Having an email server allows for a single machine to be properly
configured and attached to the network at all times. It is then ready to send and
receive messages rather than requiring every client machine to have its own
email subsystem continuously running.

Web servers
One of the most abundant types of servers in today’s market is a web
server. A web server is a special kind of application server that hosts programs
and data requested by users across the Internet or an intranet. Web servers
respond to requests from browsers running on client computers for web pages,
or other web-based services. Common web servers include Apache web servers,
Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) servers and Nginx servers.

3
Database servers
The amount of data used by companies, users, and other services is
staggering. Much of that data is stored in databases. Databases need to be
accessible to multiple clients at any given time and can require extraordinary
amounts of disk space. Both of these needs lend themselves well to locating such
databases on servers. Database servers run database applications and respond
to numerous requests from clients. Common database server applications
include Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, DB2, and Informix.

Virtual servers
Virtual servers are taking the server world by storm. Unlike traditional
servers that are installed as an operating system on machine hardware, virtual
servers exist only as defined within specialized software called hypervisor. Each
hypervisor can run hundreds, or even thousands, of virtual servers all at once.
The hypervisor presents virtual hardware to the server as if it were real physical
hardware. The virtual server uses the virtual hardware as usual, and the
hypervisor passes the actual computation and storage needs onto the real
hardware beneath, which is shared among all the other virtual servers.

Proxy servers
A proxy server acts as an intermediary between a client and a server. Often
used to isolate either the clients or servers for security purposes, a proxy server
takes the request from the client. Instead of responding to the client, it passes
the request on to another server or process. The proxy server receives the
response from the second server and then replies to the original client as if it
were replying on its own. In this way, neither the client nor the responding server
needs to directly connect to each other.

Monitoring and management servers

Some servers exist to monitor or manage other systems and clients. There
are many types of monitoring servers. Several of them listen to the network and
receive every client request and server response, but some do not request or
respond to data themselves. In this way, the monitoring server can keep track of
all the traffic on the network, as well as the requests and replies of clients and
servers, without interfering with those operations. A monitoring server will
respond to requests from monitoring clients such as those run by network
administrators watching the health of the network.

Server structures
The concept of servers is nearly as old as networking itself. After all, the
point of a network is to allow one computer to talk to another computer and
distribute either work or resources. Computing has evolved since then, resulting
in several types of server structures and hardware.
Mainframe or minicomputer (AS/400)
You could say that the original servers, mainframe computers, and later,
minicomputers, handled almost all computing tasks except the interaction with
the user through a screen and keyboard, which was left to the client system.

Computer hardware server

The next major wave of servers included computer-based servers. In many
respects, these servers were nothing more than larger, more powerful desktop
computers. Such servers were generally more expensive and held far more
memory and disk space than most client computers. Each server was still a self-
contained unit with its own motherboard, processor, memory, disk drives, and

4
power supply. Servers like this were often warehoused in air-conditioned rooms
called server rooms, and were later bolted into racks for better storage and
accessibility.

Blade servers
The original computer server hardware was large and stored in racks that
could hold hundreds of pounds. Over time, however, faster means of connecting
hardware resulted in parts of the server being extracted from a single self-
contained device. By removing hard drives, eliminating internal cooling, and the
ongoing miniaturization of computing parts, servers were eventually reduced to
a single thin server known as a blade server. While still stored in racks in server
rooms, blade servers are smaller and can be replaced more easily.

Combining servers
Even before virtualization, servers were being extracted from the standard
model of a single server operating system installed on a hardware machine.
Technology, such as network-attached storage, removed the need for a server to
have its own storage. Other technologies, such as mirroring and clustering,
enabled pieces of hardware to be combined into larger, more powerful servers.
Such a server might consist of several blades, several attached storage devices,
and an external power supply, and each piece could be swapped out for another
while the server was still running.

Virtual servers
Virtual Servers still require hardware, but that hardware now runs a
different process known as a hypervisor. In some cases, such as Microsoft’s
Hyper-V, a full operating system continues to run on the hardware itself. In other
cases, so-called bare-metal hypervisors can be installed directly onto server
hardware. In both instances, the hardware itself is often spread across an array
of blade servers, networked storage, and power supply, resulting in an
environment where it is impossible to tell where any individual server ends and
another begins.

III. Accompanying DepEd Textbook and Educational Sites

• https://www.paessler.com/it-explained/server

IV. Activity Proper

Activity 1. Direction: Explain the following:

1. What is server?

___________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________

5
 2. Characteristics of server.

___________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________

3. How server works?

___________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________

Rubric for Scoring

Criteria 3 2 1 Score
Cleanliness Readable, Mostly Not
/Neatness Understandable understandable understandable
and clean and clean and untidy
Accuracy/ Evident of own Evident of own Evident of
Clarity ideas and ideas most of confused ideas
imagination the time or imagination
Organizatio Evident of Evident of some Unorganized
n of Idea/ depth insight insight and understanding
understandi and understanding /idea. Needs
ng understanding improvement

Total:

6
Activity 2. Direction: Enumerate and describe the following:

1. Types of Servers

Types of Servers Description

2. Server Structure

Server Structure Description

Rubric for Scoring

Criteria 3 2 1 Score
Cleanliness Readable, Mostly Not
/Neatness Understandable understandable understandable
and clean and clean and untidy
Accuracy/ Evident of own Evident of own Evident of
Clarity ideas and ideas most of confused ideas
imagination the time or imagination
Organizatio Evident of Evident of some Unorganized
n of Idea/ depth insight insight and understanding
understandi and understanding /idea. Needs
ng understanding improvement

Total:

V. Reflection
What is the importance of servers?
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________