WS Lesson-1

The Windows Server 2003 Family

Windows Server 2003 Editions

■ Windows Server 2003, Web Edition

■ Windows Server 2003, Standard Edition

■ Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition

■ Windows Server 2003, Datacenter Edition

Web Edition

Web Edition supports 2 gigabytes (GB) of RAM and a two-way symmetric multiprocessor (SMP). It provides unlimited anonymous Web connections but only 10 inbound server message block (SMB) connections, which should be more than enough for con-tent publishing. The server cannot be an Internet gateway, DHCP or fax server. Although you can remotely administer the server with Remote Desktop, the server can-not be a terminal server in the traditional sense. The server can belong to a domain, but cannot be a domain controller.

Standard Edition

Windows Server 2003, Standard Edition, is a robust, multipurpose server capable of providing directory, file, print, application, multimedia, and Web services for small to medium-sized businesses. Its comprehensive feature set is expanded, compared to Windows 2000, with Microsoft SQL Server Database Engine (MSDE), a version of SQL Server that supports five concurrent connections to databases up to 2 GB in size; a free, out-of-the-box Post Office Protocol version 3 (POP3) service which, combined with the included Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) service, allows a server to function as a small, stand-alone mail server; and Network Load Balancing (NLB), a useful tool that was only included with the Advanced Server edition of Windows 2000.

The Standard Edition of Windows Server 2003 supports up to 4 GB of RAM and four-way SMP.

Enterprise Edition

The Enterprise Edition of Windows Server 2003 is designed to be a powerful server platform for medium- to large-sized businesses. Its enterprise-class features include support for eight processors, 32 GB of RAM, eight-node clustering (including clustering based on a Storage Area Network (SAN) and geographically dispersed clustering) and availability for 64-bit Intel Itanium-based computers, on which scalability increases to 64 GB of RAM and 8-way SMP.

■ Hot Add Memory, so that you can add memory to supported hardware systems without downtime or reboot.

■ Windows System Resource Manager (WSRM), which supports the allocation of CPU and memory resources on a per-application basis.

Datacenter Edition

The Datacenter Edition, which is available only as an OEM version as part of a high-end server hardware package, provides almost unfathomable scalability, with support on 32-bit platforms for 32-way SMP with 64 GB of RAM and on 64-bit platforms for 64-way SMP with 512 GB of RAM. There is also a 128-way SMP version that supports two 64-way SMP partitions.

64-Bit Editions-

The 64-bit editions of Windows Server 2003, which run on Intel Itanium-based computers, provide for higher CPU clock speeds and faster floating-point processor operations than the 32-bit editions of Windows. CPU coding improvements and processing enhancements yield significantly faster computational operations. Increased access speed to an enormous memory address space allows for smooth operation of complex, resource-intensive applications, such as massive database applications, scientific analysis applications, and heavily accessed Web servers.

Some features of the 32-bit editions are not available in the 64-bit editions. Most notably, the 64-bit editions do not support 16-bit Windows application, real-mode applications, POSIX applications, or print services for Apple Macintosh clients.