Learning Objective

At the end of this topics, students will be able to 

1. Identify and describe the functions of the primary components of a computer.

2. Identify the characteristics of various classes of single-user and multiuser computer system, and discuss the usage of each class of system

3. Identify and briefly describe the functions of two basic kinds of software​

4. Define the term “sphere of influence,” and describe how it can be used to classify software​

5. Define the basic functions performed by the operating system, utility programs, and middleware​

Computer System Types

Single-User Computers

The major groups of computer systems or single-user computers and multiple-user computers. Single-user computers, as the name suggests, is used by only one user. An example of single-user computer are your mobile computers e.g smartphones ,tabs and computers that you can carry along e.g notebooks, laptops. As an activity, think of some brands for mobile computers. Another type of single-user computers are thin-client, desktop computers and workstations. Thin client is a low-cost, centrally managed computer with no internal or external attached drives for storage (slide 35). All the processes for a think client will done on the servers. You may Google thin client to know more about it. If there is a thin client, there must a fat client, right? :-) Desktops and workstations are fat client. The computers that you used in the lab are desktop computers. What about workstations? Workstations are more powerful than a desktop. You won't use workstations to create a simple Word document. An animator would use a workstation to create and render 3D images. If the animator uses a desktop, the desktop could "crash". A data analyst would use a workstation to process HUGE amount of data to produce results. Using a desktop for this purpose would take ages. If you want to know more about the difference between desktop and workstations, refer HERE

Multiple-User Computers

Example of multiple-user computers are servers, mainframes and supercomputers. It is called multiple-user computers because these computers are being accessed by many users. These computers provide services (hence the name server) that the users need to use. Organizations would normally have many servers. The larger the number of users, the larger number of servers that an organization might have. A server provide services such as databases, email, web and many others. Thus, a large number of servers are needed. These collection of servers are located in a place called server farms. There are servers that provides an organization's data and information services. These servers are located in place called data centers. From slide 40, data center is a climate-and-access-controlled building or a set of buildings that houses the computer hardware that delivers an organization’s data and information services located in a central place called server farms. Do you know where is UTP's data center? What do you think is in UTP's data center? A data center houses an organization's data. This means the data center of an organization is one of the most important buildings in an organization. If this data center is hit by by natural disasters, sabotage acts or vandalism or other unwanted situations, the servers in the data center will be damaged and data would be lost. So, it is important that an organization has a backup data center which could restore services quickly

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