Fat Servers OR Fat Clients
- Client/Server applications can also be differentiated by how the distributed application is split between the client and the server.
- The fat server model places more function on the server.
- The fat client does the reverse.
- Groupware, transaction and the web servers are examples of fat servers; database and file servers are examples of fat clients.
- Distributed objects can be either.
Fat Client
- Fat clients are the more traditional form of client/server.
- The bulk of the application runs on the client side of the equation.
- In both the file server and database server models, the clients know how the data is organized and stored on the server side.
- Fat clients are used for decision support and personal software.
- They provide flexibility and opportunities for creating front-end tools that let end-users create their own applications.
Fat Server:
- Fat Server applications are easier to manage and deploy on the network because most of the code runs on the servers.
- Fat servers try to minimize network interchanges by creating more abstract levels of service.
- Transaction and object servers, for example, encapsulate the database.
- The client in the fat server model provides the GUI and interacts with the server through remote procedure calls (or method invocations)
- These are used for mission-critical applications, represent the new growth area fro PC-based client/server computing.
