<P> In the client--server model, the server is often designed to operate as a centralized system that serves many clients . The computing power, memory and storage requirements of a server must be scaled appropriately to the expected work - load (i.e., the number of clients connecting simultaneously). Load - balancing and failover systems are often employed to scale the server implementation . </P> <P> In a peer - to - peer network, two or more computers (peers) pool their resources and communicate in a decentralized system . Peers are coequal, or equipotent nodes in a non-hierarchical network . Unlike clients in a client--server or client--queue--client network, peers communicate with each other directly . In peer - to - peer networking, an algorithm in the peer - to - peer communications protocol balances load, and even peers with modest resources can help to share the load . If a node becomes unavailable, its shared resources remain available as long as other peers offer it . Ideally, a peer does not need to achieve high availability because other, redundant peers make up for any resource downtime; as the availability and load capacity of peers change, the protocol reroutes requests . </P> <P> Both client - server and master - slave are regarded as sub-categories of distributed peer - to - peer systems . </P>

How client server model is helpful in division of labour