Last Thursday, in a long-anticipated announcement, Microsoft officially launched its Windows Server 2003 "Whistler" operating system as well as its Visual Studio .NET 2003 development suite and the 64-bit Enterprise Edition of SQL Server 2000. The product blitz is part of a broader Microsoft initiative to make its technologies a strategic part of mission-critical IT systems within enterprises, including those that use IBM's iSeries servers.
While Windows Server 2003 is not a revolutionary product for Microsoft, its evolutionary enhancements should make it an attractive upgrade for customers with specific needs (I'll say more about those needs later). The following enhancements will likely be among the most beneficial for users.
- Native support for the .NET Framework--Unlike previous Windows releases, Windows Server 2003 supports the .NET Framework out of the box. Put simply, the .NET Framework is Microsoft's development model and runtime environment for Windows applications that utilize the Web and XML Web services. Previous editions of Windows did not include the runtime environment for .NET applications, though customers could add the environment to existing servers. With Windows Server 2003, Microsoft has fully integrated the runtime environment into the operating system. This significantly improves the performance of .NET applications and simplifies the process of deploying such applications.
- Improved Web serving capabilities--The .NET Framework includes ASP.NET, an architecture for building Web-based servlets that is similar to JavaServer Pages. With Window Server 2003, ASP.NET servlets can run as compiled--rather than interpreted applications--and can also take advantage of caching services. This should improve servlet response times and the overall scalability of Web-based applications that use ASP.NET.
- An integrated security model--Windows Server 2003 is the first version of the operating environment in which all system components utilize a single security model that is based on Active Directory. This is a marked improvement over previous Windows security models, which utilized patchworks of different security systems that could be more easily compromised. In addition, Windows Server 2003 ships with hacker-prone services--such as the Internet Information Services Web server--disabled until activated. This reduces the chance of a system compromise due to an administrative oversight.
- Reliability, scalability, and manageability enhancements--From a scalability standpoint, Microsoft claims that Windows Server 2003 will deliver up to 140% better file system performance as well as faster Web serving, terminal serving, and network services. In the reliability area, Windows Server 2003 can store the state of an ASP.NET session so that the state can survive an application crash and be restarted from other servers in a Web farm. Microsoft also has many manageability improvements on tap for Windows Server 2003 that I described in an article last month. These enhancements should significantly reduce the time and expense of managing Windows server farms while enabling individual servers to support more workloads.
Like its predecessors, Windows Server 2003 comes in several editions. The Standard Edition supports 32-bit applications running on servers with as many as four processors and 4 GB of memory. The Enterprise Edition supports both 32- and 64-bit applications on servers with up to eight CPUs and either 32 GB of memory (for 32-bit software) or 64 GB (for 64-bit software). The Datacenter Edition also supports 32- and 64-bit applications, but can run on servers with up to 64 processors and either 64 GB of memory (in 32-bit mode) or 512 GB (in 64-bit mode). In an effort to convince customers to buy in a tough economic climate, Microsoft is offering these three editions at the same prices as similar editions of Windows 2000 Server.
In addition, for the first time, Microsoft is releasing a Web Edition of the operating system that it is positioning against Linux distributions for network infrastructure workloads. The Web Edition can only support servers with up to two processors and 2 GB of memory; it also lacks features such as the Terminal Server and support for removable and remote storage. At a suggested retail price of $399, however, the Web Edition could be a cost-effective option for tasks such as serving HTML Web pages and acting as a firewall or proxy server.
The iSeries Angle
According to my IBM sources, the iSeries has been ready to support Windows Server 2003 for the last several months. Indeed, the iSeries organization certified OS/400 V5R2 for the Release Candidate 2 (RC2) version of Windows Server 2003 earlier this year. At this point, IBM intends to support the Standard and Enterprise Editions of the operating system on selected Integrated xSeries Server (IXS) cards and Integrated xSeries Adapters (IXAs) running under OS/400 V5R2. While IBM has not yet decided whether to support Windows Server 2003 under OS/400 V5R1, my guess is that it will not do so. IBM is also considering whether to support the Web Edition on its IXS and IXA cards. If this is an option you would like to have, be sure to tell your IBM representative. IBM will likely release an announcement with details of the iSeries' support in a matter of days.
While the iSeries will support Windows Server 2003, the bigger question for iSeries customers is whether they should deploy the operating system in their organizations. In this analyst's opinion, Windows Server 2003 will offer significant value to organizations that intend to deploy .NET technologies such as ASP.NET to extend their business systems to the Web or corporate intranets. It will also have value for companies with large Windows server farms that could substantially reduce their administrative overhead by consolidating to more powerful servers. If your organization is in one of these positions, give Windows Server 2003 close consideration. If your Windows workloads do not fit one of these categories, there's a good chance that Windows Server 2003 will be technological overkill...at least for the moment. However, as your preferred software vendors make decisions about supporting .NET, there's a good chance that you'll find yourself reconsidering Microsoft's latest operating system release in the future.
Lee Kroon is a Senior Industry Analyst for Andrews Consulting Group, a firm that helps mid-sized companies manage business transformation through technology. You can reach him at
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