Lesson 4: Windows 2000 Products | MCSE Training Kit (Exam 70-222): Migrating from Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 to Microsoft Windows 2000 (MCSE Training Kits)

This lesson covers which Windows 2000 product you should consider migrating to and the advantages of each product.

After this lesson, you will be able to

Decide which Windows 2000 product or products you should migrate to.

Estimated lesson time: 10 minutes

The Windows 2000 family consists of a desktop product, Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional, and three versions of server products: Microsoft Windows 2000 Server, Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server, and Microsoft Windows 2000 Datacenter Server. Each can provide file, print, and application services and is scalable depending on the environment. The four systems are described in the following sections.

Windows 2000 Professional

Windows 2000 Professional is essentially a client-based operating system. Although you can use it for file and print services, remote access, Web services, and application services, these are all essentially scaled-down versions of Windows 2000 Server. You should use Windows 2000 Professional to run these services only in small environments that have a small number of simultaneous connections—ranging from 1 to 15 depending on the service being provided.

You should consider using Windows 2000 Professional as the desktop client wherever possible, rather than using Windows 98, Microsoft Windows NT Workstation, or Microsoft Windows Me. Windows 2000 Professional offers many of the Plug and Play, power management strengths of Windows 98 and Windows Me, and enhances them with the robustness and security of Windows NT. It also offers better integration with Windows 2000 server versions. Windows 2000 Professional offers file encryption and an enhanced security model that Windows NT Workstation does not have.

Using Windows 2000 Professional also avoids problems with down-level clients, which will use LAN Manager (LM) authentication passwords stored in Windows 2000. LM passwords circumvent any required case sensitivity. Other problems are slightly more subtle: Clients other than Windows 2000 Professional will try to communicate with the PDC emulator when changing passwords rather than with the closest domain controller, thus potentially overloading the PDC emulator.

Windows 2000 Server

Windows 2000 Server is the direct replacement for Windows NT Server in that it offers four-way symmetric multiprocessor (SMP) capabilities with up to 4 GB of memory support per application. In addition, it brings all the Active Directory components and benefits of Windows 2000, such as Intellimirror technologies for reducing the total cost of ownership (TCO).

Windows 2000 Advanced Server

This program is the direct replacement for Microsoft Windows NT Enterprise Edition in that it supports eight-way SMP and two-way clustering services. You would normally migrate to this platform if you have intensive database applications or require high availability of an application; in other words, because of the clustering component, users would still be able to access the application even if a server failed.

Windows 2000 Datacenter Server

This program is a highly specialized version of Windows 2000 that requires high-end hardware on which to run. It builds on all the features of Windows 2000 Server and Advanced Server by providing 16-way SMP and 4-way clustering services. Apart from specialized high-end applications requiring a significant amount of performance and availability, such as online transaction processing (OLTP), Windows 2000 Datacenter has the ability to easily consolidate tens of servers into one box. If you find that your corporation has become server prolific, look to Windows 2000 Datacenter as a product that can consolidate and hence simplify server management.

Lesson Summary

In this lesson, you learned about the four versions of Windows 2000 available for migration. You also looked at the type of environment in which you would use each of these products.