The computer workstations are nothing more than computer equipment used to develop professional, scientific or technical work . They are also called workstation, in relation to the computer with advanced features that connects to a series of peripherals, being part of a work network .
The concept of workstations used to apply only to business computers . However, over time this concept is being matched, so that a home computer has almost the same benefits as a work team. Although it is clear that the latter will always have superior benefits to those that can be offered for a home desktop computer.
The following is all about computer stations, including what exactly they are, what types exist and what their uses are .
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What are the Workstations in computing? Definition
Workstations are high-level teams that are generally used for the work environment . These can handle a large number of applications (which require a very large number of resources). In addition, they have several processors, screen, hard disk and other peripherals that improve their capacity . On many occasions, a workstation can be used as a server to which others connect.
Those that function as server clients can run programs independently , unlike any terminal that cannot run programs without a server intervention.
Workstation components
A workstation must behave like a completely reliable team, so that it can work in environments where several processes are running at the same time. That is why must have a much higher performance than desktop computers and this is given by a good processor or CPU with a high clock frequency, good RAM and simple ROM and multiple cores.
In addition, you must have a graphics card (GPU) that allows you to manipulate 3D-ready designs without this resulting in an overload of resources to the team.
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It is not a matter of having the best parts but it is necessary that all hardware components be consonant with each other and together form a complete and balanced set as possible.
The operating system that uses a workstation must be able to communicate in a healthy and simple way with the server . That is why you can have a type of OS on the server computer (for example, Linux, which is the most effective in the environments in which workstations have room) and attack it from another such as Windows, macOS or other Linux .
Work?
Workstations are not usually used commercially because what is attempted with them, mainly, is that teams can be connected as a network and that high-level tasks are performed among all , which has no place in that context. Although they can be used at a particular level, the interesting thing is to promote their joint use to achieve certain objectives .
They have very interesting benefits and the companies themselves express these qualities in order to perform specialized calculations in a short period of time . That is why the location of the data is always controlled by the system administrator, so that it can manage how it is transmitted through the server or the equipment network or stations connected to same company network.
The main applications of these machines are the following:
- Technical applications (AEC, CAD, CAM, EDA and CASE).
- Scientific applications (applications oriented to the scientific industry , GIS, expert systems based on Artificial Intelligence programming techniques, systems for the analysis of land resources)
- Commercial applications .
- Engineering applications (CAD, CAM).
What types can we find today?
Currently we can perform a classification of workstations based on the ability of each of them to carry out certain tasks, launching some and other functions. They are as follows:
Supercomputers
It is a type of computer equipment that has the purpose of processing a significant amount of information in an ultrafast way. Its power reaches stratospheric values and makes the developers intend to improve these systems to a much higher scale.
The price of the supercomputers is around hundreds of millions of euros and can consume the energy that could be used to supply all the houses of an apple. These should be located in very precise places since they generate a lot of heat and the environment must be in line with this data.
Mainframes
These are slightly smaller computers than supercomputers that allow to manipulate large amounts of input and output information . They are located in different terminals placed throughout the physical work area . Mainframes cost more than supercomputers and can occupy entire rooms. These should also be conditioned in a special way.
An example of mainframe is that of a network of stores whose database is located on a mainframe server and each of the premises accesses it through a terminal. In addition, this access is controlled both at the input and at the data output by the machine.
Minicomputers
This is a team capable of handling large amounts of input and output data, but dedicated to a single user . They are also known as personal computers and are among the mainframes and the microcomputers .
In the case that it is a terminal server, it can be programmed to control at least several hundred terminals . These types of worstations are perfect for companies that cannot have a mainframe for their price or for the space it occupies.
Desktop computers and microcomputers
These are computers that can be used in multiple scenarios to perform any type of task . They are quite configurable and, therefore, each user can locate the model that best suits their tastes and needs.