Diamond applications usually run on processor boards connected to a Host PC, but this is not a requirement. When present, the host is responsible for loading the application and communicating with it. While it is possible to write your own host code to do this, it is simpler and more usual to leave these details to the server, a host program provided with Diamond.
The server normally remains active after loading your application so that it can respond to requests for standard I/O. If the root processor in your system is not a DSP, the server automatically terminates once the application has been loaded.