Because servers usually serve require that’s required 24/7 they’re often not at all turned off and when fail originates, the network users or company enormous experience lot of problems.

Some servers collapse can cause a company and its employees to loom to a complete halt in their work in anticipation of the return. Because of this, servers are normally high-end computers and is setup to be error forbearing.

Contrasting other computers on a system, server is a devoted computer set up for one or more reasons. For instance, a user may setup a server to validate and permit or exclude users from accessing a network, send/receive e-mail, administer print jobs, or host a website. For illustration, the Computer Hope web page is hosted on a server.

In this article, we are going to look at some ways you can make money with your server since they are powered on all the time. At the end, you will decide which option is best for you. Without wasting much time, let’s get into it.

• What is a Server?
• What Can I do With my Server to Make Money?
• What Are The 3 Ways to Make Money?
• Can I Make Money Running a Server?
• What Could I Use a Server For?
• How do I Make a Lot For my Server?
• Can I Rent Out my Server?
• What Are The Types of Dedicated Servers to Rent?
• How Can I Create a Server?
• How do VPS Server Make Money?
• How do You Make Money From Web Hosting?
• What Should I Host on a Server?
• How Much Does Running a Server Cost?
• Can You Make Your Own Data Center?
• How Many Types of Servers Are There?
• Can a Laptop be a Server?

What is a Server?

In simple terms, it’s a powerful computer that is used to serve information and software to employees, customers, and other computers.

Read Also: Earn Income with Adsense Without A Website

For example, if you have five employees in an office each working on a different computer, they should all be able to access the same software and documents. These are served from a central computer rather than having multiple versions of the files stored locally on each machine.

What Can I do With my Server to Make Money?

There are several ways to make money with a dedicated server. Keep in mind that some of these ways require specialized knowledge, and in any case, profitability is the opposite of the effort you make and the time you work hard, so get to work!

Start Web-hosting By Your Dedicated Server

Web hosting is one of the best ways to make money with a dedicated server. For most start-up websites, buying a virtual server as a hosting service is not an economical task. Also, many people who run a website do not have the knowledge to manage and use a virtual server or hosting control panels.

One of the best control panels for selling shared hosting services is cPanel. By installing this control panel on a dedicated server and selling a shared hosting service, you can earn a good income this way.

Fortunately, there are user management systems such as WHMCS that integrate easily with the cPanel, and after the purchase by the user, you do not need to do anything and the service can be delivered to the user automatically and only your job is to maintain, secure and update servers and services so you can get a cheap dedicated server and run this project.

Sell VPN To Your Clients With A Dedicated Server

VPN has always been and will always be one of the most popular internet services due to its capabilities and the security it creates for internet users.

If you have a lot of friends and acquaintances who always use VPN, or you see the power in you that can drive many users to buy VPN, creating a VPN website and selling VPN service is one of the best ways to make money with a dedicated server. Also, this service, like the shared hosting service, has a control panel and can be delivered to the users automatically.

Sell VPS With A Dedicated Server

Another way to monetize a dedicated server is to sell a virtual server. In this way, you can provide a dedicated server in the form of virtual patches called VPS to your users through virtualization systems such as VMware or KVM.

The virtual server acts somewhat like a VPN, except that one of its uses is as a VPN. A virtual server can be used as a hosting service, data storage service, and many more. A virtual server, like other services, has its own users due to its advantages.

Sell A Backup Server

Due to the development of the Internet and the increasing use of the Internet, information security is one of the most important issues in this area today. Today, many businesses are active on the Internet and are economical. For many, their website is and will be like their shop.

In the real world, we would never want to lose our assets, such as a car, shop, etc., for any reason, so we insure them. The same is true in the web world, except that instead of insuring, we have to back up our data. Due to the advancement of technology in the field of software and especially hardware, fortunately, we have Cloud and Raid technologies.

Through the Cloud technology, users can access stored information from any place and at any time. And if you use Raid on your storages, the amount of data loss will be minimized, so that instead of one storage drive, two or more of them will be used to store data, and in case of any problems for or one storage, the information will be available on the other storage(s).

Now you can start a website providing data control and backup services and make money with a dedicated server.

What Are The 3 Ways to Make Money?

Here are the 3 ways to make money.

1. Do something for other people who will pay you money. Called a job.

2. Make something or provide a service and charge money. Called a business.

3. Use your money to make money. Called investing.

Becoming wealthy is difficult using the first two. The third way is by far the best way to make money providing true financial independence.

1. Having a job: The most common way to make money, but typically is just part of making a living. Here, our livelihood is totally dependant on others.Losing our job means losing our income.

2. Starting a business: A riskier but usually a better way to build wealth. Having a business increases chances of financial security, but also means your liable for all earnings and loses.

3. Investing: Using money to make money is by far the best. Yet with greater reward comes greater risk. So do your research and start experimenting a little at a time.

Can I Make Money Running a Server?

By having the opportunity of room and transmission capacity managed by a dedicated server, you can absolutely and solely start making money with servers as you wish on the web platforms.

In spite of the fact that a dedicated server costs service in the mechanical of a common server in a month to month expenses, the distinction in charges can more than be reduced on the off chance that you put the extra space to great use which results.

When you comprehend the idea of having a dedicated server, anything is possible with regards to profiting on the web on the concept to have a regular and constant source of income on the virtual environment, no matter the object is to make money with VPS or other hosting plans or methods in order to provide to have a reasonable amount of constant financial resources as another form of regular income from various platforms except your own website or personal blog. 

Another approach to how to make money with a dedicated server is to utilize them to have other organization sites. On the off chance that you can consider how benefiting from your web hosting solutions, utilizing a format just as a lot of PCs learning, you can either utilize the dedicated server to give administration to different sites on the web or you can utilize it to have your own gathering of sites such as shared hosting servers for saving money.

Display advertisements are an incredible method to make money on your website as only letting exhibit different videos or images on your website to provide brand consideration or sales lead to other websites.

In the event that you have your own dedicated server and enjoying the technical resources of this server only yourself, you can choose which sort of promotions you can put on your site just as which subsidiary items you wish to move.

You can have a heap of sites all associated with your dedicated server and have complete control cash making properties of each. 

What Could I Use a Server For?

So you have a home server and you are wondering, what can you do with home servers? Here are some important points that you will need to keep in mind.

Provides a central location to store your media

Think about all the different media, like photos, movies, or music, stored on each of your devices: your laptop, tablet, and mobile phone. Now take into account your entire family’s devices and media — keeping track of and managing all those files can be a bit of a hassle.

Then there’s the size of those files. For example, a movie can take up a few gigabytes, and any cinephile will agree that the space on your computer runs out pretty fast.

A home media server is an excellent way to free up storage and have all those media files in one place. Instead of keeping your entire household’s files scattered across different devices, setting up a home server lets you save that data in one centralized location.

Since the server is connected to your home network, anyone in your family can access and play the media in real time from their own devices. This also makes file sharing between family members easier.

Takes the load off your main PC

Playing media does take up a significant amount of your computer’s processing power. So, let’s say you want to do some work on your laptop and play a movie in the background. In this case, a home server can take care of playing the film so you can smoothly multitask without the risk of your personal computer crashing.

Automatic data backup to a home server

Backing up all your data is essential. One click on a malicious link or simply a clumsy move with a cup of coffee next to your laptop, and all that precious information is gone.

A home backup server can be an excellent solution for keeping your information safe. You can also back up your files with NordLocker. It not only encrypts your files and protects them from any prying eyes but also allows you to choose where to keep them: on your computer or in the NordLocker cloud.

Web serving

Thinking of starting a blog? If you want complete control over the website’s management, or you’re not keen on paying for a hosting service, a home server can do the job. While it won’t handle millions of users, your old computer can perform about the same as a hosting service up to a certain amount of traffic.

Web proxy

Just like with website hosting, you can set up a home server proxy. A proxy functions as a gateway between your device and the internet. There’s plenty of software and online tutorials that will take you through setting up, configuring, and opening the right ports for your proxy.

However, keep in mind that a personal proxy won’t give you the same privacy and security as a VPN.

Provides a platform for home automation and security

A home automation server is the perfect centralized platform to manage your smart home from. You can manage heating, lighting, or IoT home appliances from a centralized server to optimize energy saving, or you can use it as a control panel for all your home security systems.

Online gaming

Some online multiplayer games offer dedicated server software so the players can host games on their own home servers. This enables you to play multiplayer games with improved performance and stability. Not to mention you will have the opportunity to customize your gameplay however you want.

How do I Make a Lot For my Server?

There several methods to make money from a dedicated server. We are now going to discuss three of them.

Setting Up Shared Hosting Services

You can set up a shared hosting on your dedicated server(s) and start selling monthly or annual subscriptions to users. It’s not a very technical job and is usually done using well-known control panels such as cPanel.

On a powerful physical dedicated server with 128 GB of RAM, approximately 150 to 200 sites can be hosted. However, keep in mind that the more clients you put on a single server the lower it brings the quality of service for everyone, and your clients might start leaving.

Creating VPN Server

It may very well be the best method for making money from a server. VPN is a tool that has transformed a lot in its function and uses since is invention.

VPN or Virtual Private Network is basically a method to create a virtual network on top of a real one, usually the internet itself. It used to be a tool mostly for organizations and companies who wanted their own internal network but had offices in different and far locations.

However, nowadays it is mostly used to change your location on the internet. You can use a VPN to make websites that you visit and applications that you use, think that you are visiting from a location different from where you actually are.

This is intended to bypass geo-restriction policies or reach content, features or benefits only available to a certain area or country. For example, many people want to visit Netflix or Youtube as if they are from the US.

You can create your own VPN service using your dedicated server(s) and start selling subscriptions. It doesn’t need much storage space since you are not going to store any information, you just pass it through. People connect to your VPN server and it will seems as if from they’re from the country your dedicated server is located in.

Can I Rent Out my Server?

Buying a dedicated server can get very expensive. It can cost you thousands of dollars to buy a physical dedicated server for your business.

But don’t let the expensive price tag scare you away from getting a dedicated server – there IS an alternative to buying it:

You can rent a dedicated server instead!

Renting a dedicated server can cost as little as $100/month, and you won’t be stuck with an expensive server in your office when you no longer want to rent it.

When you rent a server, you pay a single monthly fee to a company like ServerMania. We’re responsible for setting up and maintaining the hardware for your server and are here 24×7 to help you when you need it. The server is stored in our secure data centers with 24×7 monitoring and security. It’s also connected to our top-tier networks so you can access the server throughout the world on the best networks.

What Are The Types of Dedicated Servers to Rent?

There are 4 main types of dedicated servers you can rent:

1. Standard Dedicated Servers are the most common type of dedicated servers. They offer much better performance than shared servers and are suitable for hosting simple websites and apps that don’t have a lot of users or need a lot of computing resources.
2. Managed Dedicated Servers are good for those who are just getting started with web hosting. They are identical to standard dedicated servers, but have the advantage of being fully managed by the hosting provider. You don’t need any technical knowledge to get started with hosting on a managed dedicated server.
3. Enterprise Dedicated Servers are ideal for large corporations’ hosting web apps that are used by millions of people. They offer maximum reliability, availability, and performance for hosting the most demanding web services.
4. Unmetered Dedicated Servers come with unmetered bandwidth and a 10Gbps internet connection to handle large volumes of traffic. They are useful for web services and apps that get a lot of monthly visitors. That’s because traffic is exchanged between visitors and your server. This results in high bandwidth usage, which can only be handled using unmetered dedicated servers.

Depending on what type of service you’re planning on hosting, you’d pick a different dedicated server type.

How Can I Create a Server?

Servers typically come in three different forms – rackmount, tower, and blade. A tower server looks similar to a home PC but contains server components that are more robust than a consumer computer, allowing them to run 24/7 without interruption.

Rackmount and blade servers are installed onto a chassis making them highly expandable and good options for saving space, though both are more expensive than tower systems.

Every server contains specific hardware that determines its resource capacity, in particular, CPU (central processing unit) size, hard disk storage, and RAM (random access memory).

You may also wish to incorporate backup hardware components such as hot-swappable drive bays and a redundant power supply, as well as ECC (error correcting code) firmware that detects and corrects errors on the fly to reduce downtime.

The exact specifications of your server will depend on what you need it to do. For example, looking at some common uses:

• A server providing database services would prioritize disk space and a hard drive capable of fast write speeds, as well as support for RAID to provide reliability. (RAID, or  redundant array of independent disks, means data is held redundantly in multiple disk drives so that if one fails it is preserved.)
• A file or email server would benefit from multiple hot-swappable drive bays but the CPU is not too important.
• A web hosting server (which works together with a database server) would have higher RAM requirements and would benefit from hardware redundancy.

How to set up a server for a business

While the exact process of setting up a server for an SMB will vary based on your chosen hardware and operating system, there are some common steps you will need to follow.

1. Prepare. Before you begin, document your network. Record the names of users, IP address, hostname of each computer, serial numbers, and locations. Check both the hardware specifications and software requirements of your server. You may find that you need to upgrade the operating systems of computers on the network in order to connect them to the server. You will also need to gather any items you need for the installation such as an ethernet cable and external hard drive.
2. Install your server. If your server came with an operating system preinstalled, you can connect it to the network and begin configuration. If not, insert the installation media (DVD, USB, virtual media) and follow the instructions to set up your particular operating system.
3. Configure your server. As soon as possible after installation, set the server backup (you may need an external hard drive), set up remote access to the server, and set sharing options. Set the server as a domain controller to allow all computers in the network to join the new centralized environment and to allow the server to authenticate user credentials. 
4. Complete the setup. Add a local admin account to each PC or Mac and connect them to the server. Set up printers and connect them to the print server. Organize and upload the data and applications you wish to have on the new server, for example, your accounting software. 

Building a server room

Depending on how much space you have and your hardware choices, setting up a dedicated room to house your server is a worthwhile investment. Besides isolating noisy servers away from employees, you can ensure that everything is properly organized and set up to function optimally. When building your server room, consider the following points:

Room characteristics

Ideally, use a room with no windows and the capacity to install cooling equipment and backup power. Select a space that is big enough that you can reach the front and back of each server rack and, if possible, gives your server space to grow as your business grows.

Invest in the right equipment

While it might be tempting to use a desk or shelf to store your server, the benefits of investing in a rackmount far outweigh the costs. Racks keep your equipment secure, organized, and make it easy to rearrange server units.

You will also need a cooling system to ensure that high temperatures don’t damage your hardware. Consider installing an A/C unit that can be left on continuously, or better still, two units on separate circuit breakers to allow for a redundant supply.

Ensure security

Even for a smaller office server setup, you will need at least a lock and key to protect your expensive equipment and valuable data from theft or tampering. If your budget allows, consider installing a security camera.

A backup power supply is also highly recommended to keep your network and business running without disruption. It is good practice to install an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) to protect against power surges or outages.

Keep it organized

Cable management is an important, but often overlooked, aspect of setting up a business server. Although it requires a little extra work, an RJ45 patch panel can be used to terminate Ethernet cable runs and can provide up to 24 ports. Cable ties are also an effective and inexpensive way to keep cables organized and out of the way.

Lastly, make sure that everything is properly labeled and well-documented. It is also a good idea to document important procedures or instructions relating to your hardware and have this clearly visible near the relevant equipment.

How do VPS Server Make Money?

Having a virtual private server (VPS) opens up a world of possibilities and you should be able to make your investment in technology pay if you target your efforts in the right way.

A good starting point would be to search out the best VPS hosting option, and once you have that sorted you can focus your attention on how to generate a profit.

Here are some suggestions that could enable you to generate an income from having a VPS.

1. Get paid to promote

One of the most established money-making routes when it comes to a VPS is to look at a Paid to Promote (PTP) opportunity.

In simple terms, the idea behind PTP is that you can generate an income by agreeing to run a traffic exchange on your VPS. It is a money-making idea that requires constant work to keep the cash coming in but the rewards are there if you get it right.

2. Think big if you are going to resell

Another option to consider would be reselling, however, it tends to be the case that you need to think about buying VPS in bulk if you are going to generate some potentially serious profits.

Reselling involves buying at the right price and making a margin when selling on so the trick is to shop around to buy smart, allowing you more scope for bigger profits.

3. Be a host

Next up is the opportunity to make money from VPS hosting.

There are a couple of options to consider, either hosting your own site or concentrate on selling someone hosting on your server.

It would help if you had a good knowledge of languages, HTML, and Java, for instance, in order to pursue this option and it does also create the possibility of generating profits from showing ads on your site too.

4. Tutorials can be profitable

Passing on your knowledge and expertise can often create some money-making opportunities and that is also the case when it comes to VPS.

One idea would be to think about sharing your knowledge via social media platforms, which would earn you credits.

Also, if you decide to contribute tutorials, in general, there is a reasonable chance that you may be able to translate your knowledge into cash by earning credits of each tutorial you write.

5. Use creative thinking to turn a profit

Another way to look at the opportunities that exist with a VPS is to develop a strategy where you have multiple income streams that all combine to generate a worthwhile income.

A VPS offers you the chance to create your own website hosting company, for example, which could help generate a reasonable amount of profit each month. In addition, you may be able to start earning money by offering file sharing or data storage options.

Other possibilities include offering cloud storage or a video sharing platform.

Whichever way you look at it, there is little doubt that having a virtual private server creates a wealth of openings that could present you with a way to earn a monthly income.

How do You Make Money From Web Hosting?

You can definitely profit from web hosting because people need hosting and they are willing to pay for it. Free hosting never turns out to work out for companies and they will move on to a paid host.

You have to find a way to stand out from the crowd and be the host that companies want to work with first. Being a reseller web host is a great way to make money because all it takes is you paying for hosting at an affordable rate and then reselling it for a higher price.

As long as you have a large amount of space through a large server and bandwidth, you can divide it up and sell it to people for a monthly fee. This is a great way to make money and potentially gain loyal clients that will want to buy your other products or services.

What Should I Host on a Server?

If you have a dedicated server that you are not using right now you might be wondering about the things to do with a dedicated server. From this article, we have seen that there are many uses of dedicated servers and here are 8 of them.

1. Website hosting
2. Backup
3. A Minecraft server
4. Personal Cloud Space
5. Set up a dedicated firewall
6. Set up IRC or email server
7. Donate computing power
8. Set up VoIP (Voice over internet protocol)

How Much Does Running a Server Cost?

Have you ever stopped to wonder how much time and money you’ve invested to keep those machines running? You might be surprised by the numbers if you did.

The first thing you have to do is look beyond the initial costs of an in-house solution vs. the monthly cost of the cloud. The real picture of what’s cheaper goes far beyond the cost of a new in-house server or an annual subscription to cloud servers or Infrastructure-as-a-Service.

Look at ongoing costs instead. What are you really paying to operate, maintain and upgrade an on-premises solution over its lifetime (usually a five-year period)? What other costs are involved in a cloud solution? Only then will you be able to make a sound decision.

The best way to calculate the cost of ownership is to take a look at all your costs: direct, indirect or hidden. Here’s a breakdown, in case you’re wondering what we’re talking about. Direct costs are linked to any of the hardware required for an on-premises solution.

This can range from your actual servers to the server room where you store them. It also includes electricity and HVAC (heating, ventilation and air-conditioning).

On the other hand, indirect costs are related to the salaries you pay your System Administrator and any other IT staff member who maintains your hardware or fixes software bugs. And hidden costs? Lost productivity due to downtime is a good example.

The numbers vary. Some providers offer 98.0% of availability, which equals about  14.4 hours of allowed downtime per month. A respectable on-premises solution is also around that previous percentage, so when you compare to switching to the Cloud, you can start with that data as your guaranteed uptime.

On the other hand, other providers give their customers a service-level agreement of 99.9% of availability. This means only about 44 minutes of downtime a month. After all, downtime is a hidden cost for your business. When your site is down, your data is unavailable.

In 2017, every hour of downtime cost organizations $100 000 on average. In May of that same year, a power system in British Airway’s data center failed. The result was a loss of approximately $68 million in fare refund followed by a drop of 2.8% in stock prices. The higher the percentage of availability, the better uptime your site has and ultimately, the better it is for your business.

Can You Make Your Own Data Center?

To begin with, Edge to Cloud, automation to mechanization, data integrity to security – Data Center leaders have a lot to consider. Putting it all in a single basket, let us see how evolving organizations can start by building their own Data Centers.

Phase One: Assessment

The very first question to answer before the entire process initiates is – whether the Data Center would be built-to-suit or spec build. You see, unlike a Colocation Data Center where dynamic requirements can be managed, a privately constructed Data Center needs to be set in line as per the company’s long-term business plans.

Once the developer finalizes the target customer and project goals, only then can activities such as site selection begin. Plus, in many cases, Data Center real estate developers tend to follow a standard design which may not be beneficial in the long run. Hence, it is imperative to look at the following factors while considering a Data Center site:

  • Available land and applicable zoning
  • Soil testing
  • Existing buildings on and around the property
  • Topography
  • Electric power supply
  • Water supply
  • Fibre connectivity
  • Staffing and accessibility
  • Natural disaster profile

Phase Two: Planning

The planning phase can be undertaken concurrently with the design and site selection processes. In some scenarios, it even supersedes the first step to ensure timely deployment and strategy implementation.

Since the Data Center is built from scratch, developers such as Walt Coulston, and similar creators outline multiple parameters around the Power Usage Efficiency (PUE), N or N+1 redundancies, intended use cases, renewable energy, security, staffing, and permits that must be addressed comprehensively. Bottlenecks such as simultaneous phase distribution are also taken care of during this time.

Below are some of the common mistakes made during the Data Center planning stage:

  • Focusing only on the CAPEX and not the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)
  • Poor cost-to-build estimate
  • Overcomplicated designing with lower reliability
  • Not understanding the cost-time impact of design choices

Phase Three: Design

At this stage, Data Center viability-specific questions need to be answered like – sustainability certification, rack density goal, number of floors, and more. As discussed earlier, some design elements will borrow heavily from the last two phases. Hence, it is important to establish broad and standard criteria to streamline the design process.

Depending on whether you go for a “design-build” or one-stop-shop, the work will either need to be handled in-house or outsourced to specialist service providers. Either way, the complications in contrast to Colocation Data Centers shall rise meteorically. To bring it all together, the electrical, mechanical, and architectural teams shall collaborate cohesively, pushing towards the next phase.

Phase Four: Construction and Commissioning

This is where you begin building the Data Center. The partners and contractors work in synergy in order to execute the completed designs, thus rendering a justifiable timeline for the CAPEX investment.

The catch here is that while a simple powered-shell design might only take 3 to 4 months, a much more complicated Hyperscale, built-to-suit Data Center can be under construction for up to 2 years. With the immediate demand for Cloud computing and On-ramp services, it becomes a stress test to maintain the integrity of organisational data without depending on a Colocation facility.

Phase Five: Operation

In reality, only the development phase is completed with the construction and commissioning. Operations only begin once you occupy the space and deploy your resources via the Cloud. At this point, the Data Center developer works towards collecting real-time data on the utilisation and performance of the servers.

The results lend insights into whether the systems work well with each other or not. If there are any inconsistencies, then they need to be translated into actionable agendas, which more often than not mean reiterating certain phases and adding on to the overall time and investment.

How Many Types of Servers Are There?

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

1. Web server

An open-source web server is used for accessing the world wide web through public domain software. These servers connect stored information from an internet website to your own computer. Web servers store information for the internet that is retrieved via “HTTP” code and sent to your web browser. This is one of the most widely used types of servers.

2. Proxy server

Proxy servers act as a bridge between a host server and a client server. A proxy sends data from a website to your computer IP address after it passes through the proxy’s server. This practice adds a layer of security since the information is requested then transferred from the source to the proxy server and never directly from a client to another user. A proxy server can filter out various harmful internet entities.

3. Virtual machine (VM)

As their name suggests, virtual machines store and connect data strictly through virtual space. To create a virtual machine, IT teams use a hypervisor, also known as a virtual machine monitor (VMM), which is software that can run thousands of virtual machines through only one piece of physical hardware. This method of server virtualization is widely used for data transfer and storage because they are the most cost-effective type of server to run.

4. File transfer protocol (FTP) server

FTP servers are used to relocate files from one computer to another. Uploaded files move from your computer to the server while downloaded files are extracted from the server onto your device. File transfer protocol also refers to the method of using a server to connect one computer to another in order to share data safely.

5. Application server

These servers connect clients to software applications through virtual server connections. This allows users to bypass downloading data to their own hardware in order to access applications. Application servers can effectively host large amounts of application data to many users at once, making them ideal for businesses.

6. File server

A file server stores data files for multiple users. They allow for faster data retrieval and saving or writing files to a computer. This is a basic type of server used commonly by organizations where lots of users need access to files that are more conveniently and safely stored on a server than a personal computer.

7. Database server

Database servers function as large storage spaces that organizations use and access to run multiple programs to meet their needs. A database server can run independently of any database architecture.

8. Mail server

A mail server stores and delivers mail for clients through email service platforms. Because mail servers are set up to continually connect to a network, individual users can access their email without running any systems through their own devices.

9. Print server

A print server connects remotely to local computers to print through a network. These servers give businesses the ability to use a single printer to serve an entire department. Some printers even come with their own built-in server ready to join a network once they’re installed in an office area.

10. Domain name system (DNS) server

These servers transform readable computer domain names into computer language IP addresses. The DNS server takes search data from a user and finds the requested address to deliver to the client device.

11. Collaboration server

When work needs to be shared across multiple users, a collaboration server makes it easy to connect. These servers allow you to share and store files, applications and other large amounts of data.

12. Gaming server

Large gaming networks use servers to connect users from around the world. These servers host multi-player online games.

13. Monitoring and management server

Monitoring and management servers function in several capacities. First, they record and track digital transactions and receive user requests. Others simply monitor and don’t actively participate in user operations. Monitoring servers are responsive to network administrators who survey network health to check for threats or bugs in the system.

Can a Laptop be a Server?

When setting up a laptop as a server, you have several options. You can use it as a file and media server using tools native to Windows. You can also install a specific server operating system to create a customizable Web or gaming server.

Using Windows as a Server

To share files from your laptop to other computers running Windows 7 or Windows 8 on your home network, run the setup wizard for HomeGroup on your laptop. This allows you to share and manage your laptop’s files from other computers.

If you want to stream media, open up Windows Media Player on the laptop, click the “Stream” button and choose both “Allow Remote Control of My Player” and “Automatically Allow Devices to Play My Media.” You will also need to click “More Streaming Options” to choose which computers can stream media from your server.

Web Servers

Apache is one of the most popular Web server management tools available; it powers most of the websites on the Internet and has an array of add-on features available. Another solution is Ngnix, which is the second-most used tool on the Internet.

The benefit to using Apache is that you can install it on your Windows machine and continue to run your regular Windows programs while also serving websites over the Internet. However, allowing Internet access to a computer that also stores personal files presents a perhaps unnecessary vulnerability.

For better security when running a Web server, consider installing a Linux-based operating system for a server, such as Ubuntu Server. This requires a lot of configuration and has a learning curve, but the Ubuntu server edition is free and has a large community of both official and user-based support.

Network Considerations

Whether you’re streaming within your home or accessing your home files from the office, you need network equipment that can keep up with the task. If possible, connect your laptop to the Internet via Ethernet cable.

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If you intend to use your laptop as a Web or gaming server, make sure that your home Internet connection is up to the task; slow speeds can cripple a Web server, and exceeding data limits is costly. You will need a static IP for the task, which usually comes with business-class plans.

Risks and Warnings

Place your laptop-turned-server in a location where it has plenty of airflow and isn’t likely to overheat; laptops are notorious for their lack of proper airflow, and servers get hot due to constant use.

Running your laptop 24-7 as a server will add an additional cost to your electric bill, and if you exceed data caps, it can add to your Internet bill as well. If your laptop has low resources, such as processing speed and RAM, it may not be well-suited to act as a server.

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