Cost-Benefit Issues
To support business requirements, information systems need to be scalable, powerful,
and flexible. For most companies, client/server systems offer the best combination of
features to meet those needs. Whether a business is expanding or downsizing, client/
server systems enable the firm to scale the system in a rapidly changing environment.
As the size of the business changes, it is easier to adjust the number of clients and the
processing functions they perform than it is to alter the capability of a large-scale central
server.
Client/server computing also allows companies to transfer applications from expensive
mainframes to less-expensive client platforms. In addition, using common languages
such as SQL, clients and servers can communicate across multiple platforms. That difference
is important because many businesses have substantial investments in a variety of
hardware and software environments.
Finally, compared to file server designs, client/server systems reduce network load
and improve response times. For example, consider a user at a company headquarters
who wants information about total sales figures. In a file server design, the system might
need to transmit three separate sales transaction files from three regional offices in order
to provide sales data that the client would process; in a client/server system, the server
locates the data, performs the necessary processing, and responds immediately to the client’s
request. The data retrieval and processing functions are transparent to the client
because they are done on the server, not the client.