Windows Server 2003 Flavors

Before we conclude this chapter, I’ll talk briefly about the different “flavors” of Windows Server 2003 because they impact to a degree the capabilities (and sometimes the features) of the platform’s IIS 6 component. First, recall that the previous platform in this series from Microsoft, Windows 2000, came in four flavors:

  • Windows 2000 Professional The desktop version of the platform

  • Windows 2000 Server A departmental server platform that included IIS 5 and supported 4-way SMP and up to 4GB of memory

  • Windows 2000 Advanced Server An enterprise-level server that included everything Windows 2000 Server had, plus 2-node clustering and network load balancing; and it supported 8-way SMP and up to 8GB of memory.

  • Windows 2000 Datacenter Server A high-availability platform available only through OEM channels that included everything Windows 2000 Advanced Server had, plus 4-node failover clustering; and it supported 32-way SMP and up to 64GB of memory.

In Microsoft’s new Windows XP/ 2003 Server family platform, which is the successor to the earlier Windows 2000 line, these four earlier products have now evolved into six new ones:

  • Windows XP Home Edition A lightweight successor to both Windows 98/Me and Windows 2000 Professional.

  • Windows XP Professional Edition Replaces Windows 2000 Professional on the corporate desktop.

  • Windows Server 2003, Standard Edition Includes IIS 6 and is the natural successor to Windows 2000 Server as a basic departmental file, print, and application server. Standard Server supports four-way SMP and up to 4GB of memory.

  • Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition The natural descendant of Windows 2000 Advanced Server. Enterprise Server includes everything found in Standard plus 8-node Edition clustering and support for 8-way SMP and up to 32GB of memory (Windows 2000 Advanced Server supported only 8GB of memory).

  • Windows Server 2003, Datacenter Edition The super high-end mission- critical platform that you can only buy direct from an OEM. Features are similar to Windows 2000 Datacenter Server with advanced clustering support.

  • Windows Server 2003, Web Edition A.k.a. “Blade” (with apologies to Wesley Snipes), this is the new baby in the evolutionary tree and represents a radical (and refreshing) departure for Microsoft: it’s a version of their server operating system specifically intended for use as a web server. the Web Edition is easy to deploy and manage and is intended primarily for running on rack-mountable “blade servers” where multiple physical servers, each the size of a peripheral card, are mounted inside a chassis for greater density of server resources. As a result of its intended use, the Web Edition lacks many of the features found on the other Windows Server 2003 family members, such as Internet Connection Sharing and Services for Macintosh. In addition, the Web Edition cannot be deployed as a domain controller, does not support clustering, and supports 2-way SMP and up to 2GB of memory, making it the most lightweight of the Windows Server 2003 family.

In addition, I should mention that two members of the family—namely, Enterprise and Datacenter Servers—are also available in 64-bit versions that run on Intel’s new Itanium processor architecture. Enterprise Server supports up to 64GB of memory on Itanium, while Datacenter Server can go up to 512GB of memory on this platform. For a closer comparison of the features supported by the four Windows Server 2003 family members, see Table 1-1. The hardware requirements for these different platforms will be specified in detail in Chapter 3, “Planning Deployment.”

Table 1-1: Differences Between Web, Standard, and Enterprise Editions

Feature

Web

Standard

Enterprise

Clustering Technologies

Cluster Service

  

Yes

Network Load Balancing (NLB)

Yes

Yes

Yes

Directory Services

Active Directory

Partial

Yes

Yes

Metadirectory Services (MMS) Support

  

Yes

File and Print Services

Distributed File System (Dfs)

Yes

Yes

Yes

Encrypting File System (EFS)

Yes

Yes

Yes

Fax Service

 

Yes

Yes

Removable and Remote Storage

 

Yes

Yes

Services for Macintosh

 

Yes

Yes

Shadow Copy Restore

Yes

Yes

Yes

SharePoint Team Services

 

Yes

Yes

Management Services

IntelliMirror

Yes

Yes

Yes

Remote Installation Services (RIS)

 

Yes

Yes

Remote OS Installation

Yes

Yes

Yes

Resultant Set of Policy (RSoP)

Yes

Yes

Yes

Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) Command Line

Yes

Yes

Yes

Multimedia Services

Windows Media Services

 

Yes

Yes

.NET Application Services

ASP.NET

Yes

Yes

Yes

Enterprise UDDI Services

 

Yes

Yes

Internet Information Services 6

Yes

Yes

Yes

.NET Framework

Yes

Yes

Yes

Networking Services

Internet Authentication Service (IAS)

 

Yes

Yes

Internet Connection Sharing (ICS)

 

Yes

Yes

IPv6 support

Yes

Yes

Yes

Network Bridge

 

Yes

Yes

Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)

 

Yes

Yes

Virtual Private Networking (VPN)

Partial

Yes

Yes

Scalability

64-bit Support for Itanium Platform

  

Yes

Hot Add Memory

  

Possible

Non-Uniform Memory Access (NUMA)

  

Possible

Security Services

Certificate Services, PKI, and Smart Cards

Partial

Yes

Yes

Internet Connection Firewall

 

Yes

Yes

Terminal Services

Remote Desktop for Administration

Yes

Yes

Yes

Terminal Server

 

Yes

Yes

Terminal Server Session Directory

  

Yes

Note 

I’ve omitted coverage of Windows Datacenter Edition from Table 1-1 as this is an OEM product whose specifications depend in part on hardware support. Because it is unlikely that Datacenter Server would be used as a web application server (it is intended mainly as a back-end database server), it is not covered in this book.

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Challenge

You are currently running your company's website on a combination of IIS 4 and 5 machines and are considering upgrading to IIS 6. What reasons can you give your boss to justify the cost of the upgrade? What benefits do you expect to achieve with IIS 6 over previous versions? How concerned are you about your legacy web applications running on the new platform? Which flavors of Windows Server 2003 would you utilize for running IIS 6?

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IIS 6 Administration
IIS 6 Administration
ISBN: 0072194855
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 131
Authors: Mitch Tulloch

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