Windows Server 2003

Windows server 2003

Introduction to windows server 2003 core functionality

The Windows Server 2003 family takes the best of Windows technology and makes it easier to deploy, manage, and use. This results in a highly productive infrastructure that helps make your network a strategic asset for your organization.

Improvements to Windows 2000

Windows Server 2003 includes all the functionality customers need today from a Windows server operating system to do more with less, such as security, reliability, availability, and scalability. In addition, Microsoft has improved and extended the Windows server operating systems to incorporate the benefits of Microsoft® .NET for connecting information, people, systems, and devices.

Windows Server 2003 is a multipurpose operating system capable of handling a diverse set of server roles, depending on your needs, in either a centralized or distributed fashion. Some of these server roles include:

• File and print server.

• Web server and Web application services.

• Mail server.

• Terminal server.

• Remote access and virtual private network (VPN) server.

• Directory services, Domain Name System (DNS), Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) and Windows Internet Naming service (WINS)

• Streaming media server.

Benefits of the Windows Server 2003 Family Dependable

Windows Server 2003 has the reliability, availability, scalability, and security that makes it a highly dependable platform

• Availability. The Windows Server 2003 family provides improved availability through enhanced clustering support. Clustering services have become essential for organizations deploying critical e-commerce and line-of-business applications, because they provide significant improvements in availability, scalability, and manageability. Clustering installation and setup is easier and more robust in Windows Server 2003, while enhanced network features in the product provide greater failover capabilities and high system uptime. The Windows Server 2003 family supports server clusters for up to eight nodes. If one of the nodes in a cluster becomes unavailable because of failure or maintenance, another node immediately begins providing service, through a process known as failover. Windows Server 2003 also supports network load balancing (NLB), which balances incoming Internet Protocol (IP) traffic across nodes in a cluster.

• Scalability. The Windows Server 2003 family provides scalability through scale-up, enabled by symmetric multiprocessing (SMP), and scale-out, enabled by clustering. Internal tests indicate that compared to Windows 2000 Server, Windows Server 2003 delivers up to 140 percent better performance in the file system and significantly better performance in various other features including the Microsoft Active Directory® service, Web server and Terminal Server components, and networking services. Windows Server 2003 scales from single processor solutions all the way up Ic 64-way systems. It supports both 32-bit and 64-bit processors.

• Security. Businesses have extended the-traditional local area network (LAN) by combining intranets, extranets, and sites. As a result, increased system security is now more critical than ever before. Windows Server 2003 provides many important new security features and improvements including:

i) The common language runtime. This software engine is a key element of Windows Server 2003 that improves reliability and helps ensure a safe computing environment. It reduces the number of bugs and security holes caused by common programming mistakes. As a result, there are fewer vulnerabilities for attackers to exploit. The common language runtime also verifies that applications can run without error and checks for appropriate security permissions, making sure that code performs only appropriate operations.

ii) Internet Information Services 6.0. To increase Web server security, Internet Information Services (IlS) 6.0 is configured for maximum security out of the box. IIS 6.0 and Windows Server 2003 provide the most dependable, productive, connected, and integrated Web server solution with fault tolerance, requesting queuing, application health monitoring, automatic application recycling, caching, and more. These are among the many new features in 115 6.0 that enable you to conduct business securely on the Web.