Servers and clients are the building blocks of computer networks Client-server networking grew in popularity during the 1990s as personal computers became the alternative to mainframe computers.

Numerous applications run in a client-server architecture. This means that client computers (computers forming part of the network) contact a server that provides services to the client computers.

The two basic LAN models are client-server and peer-to-peer. In a peer-to-peer network, all computers on the network share each other's resources, including disk storage and attached printers.