In this way, the applications may be distributed to the workstations within the network and may be started by every user. In the ring, the network access is controlled by a circulating token. In a cluster there are two categories of stations beside the peripherals. Normally servers are high-speed workstations without display and keyboard. They are specially equipped with one or more processors and big main memory and mass storage systems.
File servers export their file systems to diskless clients and other WSs.
A normal workstation may be used as a server, too. In this case, the machine is workstation and server at the same time. To handle the services between the stations, the client-server model is used. A client process gives an order to the server process. The server process executes the order and sends the results back to the client.