History of Computers - Servers

Introduction

A server is a computer that hosts other computers on a local network. This type of computer is very efficient at processing and delivering data quickly to other computers.

The IBM VM

In 1981, The IBM Virtual Machine hosted the first kind of emailing software named LISTSERV using a network called BITNET.

NeXTCube

In 1991, The NeXTCube contained a 256 MHz CPU, 2GB on a disk, and a grayscale monitor running NeXTSTEP OS and allowed the birth of the World Wide Web.

ProLiant

ProLiant was the first ever rack-mounted server. Being introduced in 1994, it had an Intel P2 Xeon 450 Mhz, 256Mb RAM, and a 24X CDROM player.

Sun Ultra II

In 1998, The Sun Ultra II was the first ever server made by Google located at Stanford University. It had dual 200Mhz CPUs and 256 MB of RAM.

RLX Blade

Released in 2001, RLX Technologies the first ever blade server which took previous server models and shrunk them to a more compact rack type server configuration.

PS3 Cluster

Released in 2003, The PS3 Cluster contained a 3.2 Ghz Cell Broadband Engine CPU, a 60 GB ATA Hard Drive, a 256MB RAM, a 550Mhz RSX GPU. Although the PS3 Cluster was only a video game console at heart, It featured built-in networking.