Internet Services

With Windows 2000, anything that can be done on a corporate network can be done in a Web environment as well. Windows 2000 incorporates a set of services that provide server-side support for the most popular application-level Internet protocols, enabling a Windows 2000 server to function as a Web server, FTP server, SMTP host, or NNTP host.

In the Microsoft Windows NT 4 operating system, these services are provided by an optional component called Internet Information Server. To obtain full support for Internet services in a Windows NT 4 environment, administrators must install Internet Information Server after applying Service Pack 3 or later for Windows NT 4 Server and the Windows NT 4 Option Pack. By contrast, basic Internet services are fully integrated into the Windows 2000 Server and Windows 2000 Advanced Server platforms. These services are now referred to as Internet Information Services 5 instead of Internet Information Server.

Because Internet Information Services are fully integrated with Windows 2000, you can do things like host multiple Web sites on a single Windows 2000 server with only one IP address. In addition, each Web site can have its own user database, which means that multiple independent user domains can coexist on a single server.