A server farm is a collection of real servers that operate behind a virtual IP address, streamlining server workload by spreading it among many physical servers using a load-balancer. For example, when a connection is made to a virtual IP address that is associated with a load-balancer, the load-balancer picks the best real server to handle the connection. A server farm also increases redundancy by allowing other servers to handle incoming requests if one fails.
A real server is a physical machine that hosts data, manages network resources, and processes workload from clients. Virtual servers are interfaces that accept incoming connections and route them to a real server. The system that the load-balancer uses to determine if a real server is available to accept incoming connections is called health monitoring
Assembling a server farm is optional and is done after installingPerceptive ContentServer and before installingPerceptive Content Client. For more information, see the steps in the Assemble and configure a server farm for Perceptive Content Server section in this document.