What are the practical differences between an IP address and a server?

Posted by JMC Creative on Server Fault See other posts from Server Fault or by JMC Creative
Published on 2010-12-22T15:09:14Z Indexed on 2010/12/22 15:56 UTC
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My understanding of IPs and other DNS-type server-related issues really falls short (read: exteme noob).

I know a dedicated server would increase speed. What, if any, difference in speed would a dedicated IP make? Am I correct in understanding the Best Practices from Yahoo that I could use the second IP to serve up some content, which would increase the number of parallel downloads for the user? Or are both IPs (purchase from same hosting account) going to point to the same server? Or how does it work?

Are there other optimization things I should be aware of when thinking of purchasing a dedicated IP?

Clarification
I am talking about the speed of serving the webpages, i.e. the speed of my website. Yes, I know that IP and server are completely different, not even opposites, just different. But this, indeed, is my question!

The Question Reformulated:
Will having a second (dedicated) IP on my website speed up the time that it will load and display for the user? Or does that have nothing at all to do with IP, and is only a server issue? I'm sorry if this is still unclear. This is a real question though, I may just not be wording it well.

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