The biggest class of server is composed of mid-range systems aimed at everyone from small workgroups to corporate departments, for everything from file and print sharing to hosting a Web site. But their very versatility means choosing the right one for your business requires you to know just what you want to achieve.
Servers tend to fall into three broad categories.
Between these two extremes, however, is an even bigger category made up of servers that are actually quite difficult to characterise. Collectively referred to as either workgroup or departmental servers, they're a lot larger and more complex than the entry-level systems, but nowhere near as sophisticated as the enterprise models. It's easy to appreciate why these mid-range servers are so hard to categorise, as they can be bought and used for a number of purposes. On top of this, the workgroups these servers are bought to support vary in size enormously, from just a handful of users to a couple of hundred or more. Inevitably, the hardware needed to service such a wide range of requirements comes in an equally wide variety of shapes and sizes, with different feature sets and options to suit particular networks and applications.