| Windows Server 2003 | |
|---|---|
| Part of the Microsoft Windows family | |
| Screenshot of Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition | |
| Developer | |
| Microsoft | |
| Releases | |
| Release date | 24 April 2003 [info] |
| Current version | 5.2 (Build 3790: Service Pack 2) (March 13, 2007) [info] |
| Source model | Shared source |
| License | MS-EULA |
| Kernel type | Hybrid kernel |
| Platform support | IA-32, x86-64, Itanium |
| Preceded by | Windows 2000 |
| Succeeded by | Windows Server 2008 |
| Support status | |
| Extended support until 14 July 2015.[1] Security updates will be provided free of cost. Paid support is still available. |
|
Windows Server 2003 (sometimes referred to as Win2K3) is a server operating system produced by Microsoft, introduced on 24 April 2003. An updated version, Windows Server 2003 R2, was released to manufacturing on 6 December 2005. Its successor, Windows Server 2008, was released on 4 February 2008.
According to Microsoft, Windows Server 2003 is more scalable and delivers better performance than its predecessor, Windows 2000.[2]
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Windows Server 2003 comes in a number of editions, each targeted towards a particular size and type of business.[4] In general, all variants of Windows Server 2003 have the ability to share files and printers, act as an application server, and host message queues, provide email services, authenticate users, act as an X.509 certificate server, provide LDAP directory services, serve streaming media, and to perform other server-oriented functions.
SBS includes Windows Server and additional technologies aimed at providing a small business with a complete technology solution. The technologies are integrated to enable small business with targeted solutions such as the Remote Web Workplace, and offer management benefits such as integrated setup, enhanced monitoring, a unified management console, and remote access.
The Standard Edition of SBS includes Windows SharePoint Services for collaboration, Microsoft Exchange server for e-mail, Fax Server, and Active Directory for user management. The product also provides a basic firewall, DHCP server and NAT router using either two network cards or one network card in addition to a hardware router.
The Premium Edition of SBS includes the features of the Standard edition plus Microsoft SQL Server 2000 and Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2004.
SBS has its own type of Client Access License (CAL) that is different and costs slightly more than CALs for the other editions of Windows Server 2003. However, the SBS CAL encompasses the user CALs for Windows Server, Exchange Server, SQL Server, and ISA Server, and hence is less expensive than buying all other CALs individually.
SBS server has the following design limitations, mainly affecting Active Directory:[5]
Windows Server 2003, Web Edition is mainly for building and hosting Web applications, Web pages, and XML web services. It is designed to be used primarily as an IIS 6.0 Web server [8] and provides a platform for rapidly developing and deploying XML Web services and applications that use ASP.NET technology, a key part of the .NET Framework. Terminal Services is not included on Web Edition. However, Remote Desktop for Administration is available.. Only 10 concurrent file-sharing connections are allowed at any moment. It is not possible to install Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Exchange software in this edition without installing Service Pack 1. Despite supporting XML Web services and ASP.NET, UDDI cannot be deployed on Windows Server 2003 Web Edition. The .NET Framework version 2.0 is not included with Windows Server 2003, Web Edition, but can be installed as a separate update from Windows Update.
Windows Server 2003 Web Edition supports a maximum of 2 physical processors with support for a maximum of 2GB of RAM. Additionally, Windows Server 2003, Web Edition cannot act as a domain controller.[4] It is the only edition of Windows Server 2003 that does not require Client Access Licenses when used as the internet facing server front end for Internet Information Services and Windows Server Update Services. When using it for storage or as a backend with another remote server as the frontend, CALs may still be required.[8]
Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Standard Edition is aimed towards small to medium sized businesses. Standard Edition supports file and printer sharing, offers secure Internet connectivity , and allows centralized desktop application deployment. The initial release of Windows Server 2003 was available solely for 32-bit processors; a 64-bit version supporting the x86-64 architecture (AMD64 and EM64T, called collectively x64 by Microsoft) was released in April 2005.[9] The 32-bit version will run on up to 4 processors and up to 4 GB RAM; the 64-bit version is capable of addressing up to 32 GB of RAM and also supports Non-Uniform Memory Access. The 32-bit version is available for verified students to download free of charge as part of Microsoft's DreamSpark program.
Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition is aimed towards medium to large businesses. It is a full-function server operating system that supports up to 8 processors and provides enterprise-class features such as eight-node clustering using Microsoft Cluster Server (MSCS) software and support for up to 64 GB of memory through PAE (added with the /PAE boot string). Enterprise Edition also comes in 64-bit versions for the Itanium and x64 architectures. The 64-bit versions of Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition are capable of addressing up to 1 TB of memory. Both 32-bit and 64-bit versions support Non-Uniform Memory Access (NUMA). It also provides the ability to hot-add supported hardware. Enterprise Edition is also required to issue custom certificate templates.
Windows Server 2003, Datacenter Edition is designed[10] for infrastructures demanding high security and reliability. Windows Server 2003 is available for x86, Itanium, and x86-64 processors. It supports a maximum of up to 32 processors on 32-bit or 64 processors on 64-bit hardware. 32-bit architecture also limits memory addressability to 64 GB,[11] while the 64-bit versions support up to 1 TB. Windows Server 2003, Datacenter Edition, also allows limiting processor and memory usage on a per-application basis.
Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition also supports Non-Uniform Memory Access. If supported by the system, Windows, with help from the system firmware will make use of NUMA kernel awareness, which is indicated by the presence of a firmware generatel ACPI Static Resource Affinity Table (SRAT) that defines the NUMA topology of the system. Windows then uses this table to optimize memory accesses, and provide NUMA awareness to applications, thereby increasing the efficiency of thread scheduling and memory management.
Windows Server 2003, Datacenter Edition has better support for Storage Area Networks (SANs). It features a service which uses Windows sockets to emulate TCP/IP communication over native SAN service providers, thereby allowing a SAN to be accessed over any TCP/IP channel. With this, any application that can communicate over TCP/IP can use a SAN, without any modification to the application.
Windows Server 2003, Datacenter Edition also supports 8-node clustering. Clustering increases availability and fault tolerance of server installations by distributing and replicating the service among many servers. This edition supports clustering with each cluster having its own dedicated storage, or with all cluster nodes connected to a common storage area network (SAN). The SAN can be running on a Windows or non-Windows operating system and may be connected to other computers as well.
Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 (CCS), released in June 2006, is designed for high-end applications that require high performance computing clusters. It is designed to be deployed on numerous computers to be clustered together to achieve supercomputing speeds. Each Compute Cluster Server network comprises at least one controlling head node and subordinate processing nodes that carry out most of the work.
Compute Cluster Server uses the Microsoft Messaging Passing Interface v2 (MS-MPI) to communicate between the processing nodes on the cluster network. It ties nodes together with a powerful inter-process communication mechanism which can be complex because of communications between hundreds or even thousands of processors working in parallel.
The application programming interface consists of over 160 functions. A job launcher enables users to execute jobs to be executed in the computing cluster. MS MPI was designed to be compatible with the reference open source MPI2 specification which is widely used in High-performance computing (HPC). With some exceptions because of security considerations, MS MPI covers the complete set of MPI2 functionality as implemented in MPICH2, except for the planned future features of dynamic process spawn and publishing.
Windows Storage Server 2003, a part of the Windows Server 2003 series, is a specialized server operating system for Network Attached Storage (NAS). Launched in 2003 at Storage Decisions in Chicago, it is optimized for use in file and print sharing and also in Storage Area Network (SAN) scenarios. It is only available through Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). Unlike other Windows Server 2003 editions that provide file and printer sharing functionality, Windows Storage Server 2003 does not require any Client access licenses.
Windows Storage Server 2003 NAS equipment can be headless, which means that they are without any monitors, keyboards or mice, and are administered remotely. Such devices are plugged into any existing IP network and the storage capacity is available to all users. Windows Storage Server 2003 can use RAID arrays to provide data redundancy, fault-tolerance and high performance. Multiple such NAS servers can be clustered to appear as a single device. This allows for very high performance as well as allowing the service to remain up even if one of the servers goes down.
Windows Storage Server 2003 can also be used to create a Storage Area Network, in which the data is transferred in terms of chunks rather than files, thus providing more granularity to the data that can be transferred. This provides higher performance to database and transaction processing applications. Windows Storage Server 2003 also allows NAS devices to be connected to a SAN.
Windows Storage Server 2003 R2, as a follow-up to Windows Storage Server 2003, adds file-server performance optimization, Single Instance Storage (SIS), and index-based search. Single instance storage (SIS) scans storage volumes for duplicate files, and moves the duplicate files to the common SIS store. The file on the volume is replaced with a link to the file. This substitution reduces the amount of storage space required, by as much as 70%.[12]
Windows Storage Server R2 provides an index-based, full-text search based on the indexing engine already built into Windows server.[12] The updated search engine speeds up indexed searches on network shares. Storage Server R2 also provides filters for searching many standard file formats, such as .zip, AutoCAD, XML, MP3, and .pdf, and all Microsoft Office file formats.
Windows Storage Server 2003 R2 includes built in support for Windows SharePoint Services and Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server, and adds a Storage Management snap-in for the Microsoft Management Console. It can be used to manage storage volumes centrally, including DFS shares, on servers running Windows Storage Server R2.
Windows Storage Server 2003 R2 can be used as an iSCSI target with standard and enterprise editions of Windows Storage Server 2003 R2, incorporating WinTarget iSCSI technology which Microsoft acquired in 2006 by from StringBean software.[13][14] This will be an add-on feature available for purchase through OEM partners as an iSCSI feature pack, or is included in some versions of WSS as configured by OEMs.
Windows Storage Server 2003 can be promoted to function as a domain controller; however, this edition is not licensed to run directory services. It can be joined to an existing domain as a member server.[15]
Windows Storage Server 2003 R2 is available in the following editions:
| Express Edition | Workgroup Edition | Standard Edition | Enterprise Edition | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number of physical CPUs[lower-roman 1] | 1 | 1-4 | 1-64 | |
| 32-bit and 64-bit versions available | Yes | |||
| Numbers of disk drives | 2 | 4 | Unlimited | |
| NICs | 1 | 2 | Unlimited | |
| Print service | No | Yes | ||
| CALs required | No | |||
| iSCSI target support | Optional | |||
| Clustering | No | Yes | ||
Windows Unified Data Storage Server is a version of Windows Storage Server 2003 R2 with iSCSI target support standard, available in only the standard and enterprise editions.
Windows Home Server is an operating system from Microsoft based on Windows Small Business Server 2003 SP2 (this can be seen in the directory listings of the install DVD). Announced on 7 January 2007 at the Consumer Electronics Show by Bill Gates, Windows Home Server is intended to be a solution for homes with multiple connected PCs to offer file sharing, automated backups, and remote access.
Windows Home Server began shipment to OEMs on 15 September 2007.[16]
| Standard | Enterprise | Datacenter | Web | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number of physical CPUs | 1-4 | 1-8 | 8-64 | 2 |
| maximum RAM available | 4GB (x86) 32GB (x86_64) |
64GB (x86) 1TB (x86_64) |
2GB | |
On 30 March 2005, Microsoft released Service Pack 1 for Windows Server 2003. Among the improvements are many of the same updates that were provided to Windows XP users with Service Pack 2. Features that are added with Service Pack 1 include:
A full list of updates is available in the Microsoft Knowledge Base.[23]
Windows Server 2003 R2, an update of Windows Server 2003, was released to manufacturing on 6 December 2005. It is distributed on two CDs, with one CD being the Windows Server 2003 SP1 CD. The other CD adds many optionally installable features for Windows Server 2003. The R2 update was released for all x86 and x64 versions. Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition was not released for Itanium.[24]
Service Pack 2 for Windows Server 2003 was released on 13 March 2007.[25] The release date was originally scheduled for the first half of 2006.[25] On 13 June 2006, Microsoft made an initial test version of Service Pack 2 available to Microsoft Connect users, with a build number of 2721. This was followed by build 2805, known as Beta 2 Refresh. The latest build is the build 3959.
Microsoft has described Service Pack 2 as a "standard" service pack release containing previously-released security updates, hotfixes, and reliability and performance improvements.[26] In addition, Service Pack 2 contains Microsoft Management Console 3.0, Windows Deployment Services (which replaces Remote Installation Services), support for WPA2, and improvements to IPsec and MSConfig. Service Pack 2 also adds Windows Server 2003 Scalable Networking Pack (SNP),[27] which allows hardware acceleration for processing network packets, thereby enabling faster throughput. SNP was previously available as an out-of-band update for Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1.
As of October 2009, no further Service Packs are planned for Windows Server 2003.[25]
On July 13, 2010, Windows 2003 and its family of operating systems were moved from Mainstream Support to the Extended Support phase as it marks the progression of the legacy operating system through the Microsoft Support Lifecycle Policy. During the Extended Support Phase, Microsoft will continue to provide security updates every month for Windows 2003; however, free technical support, warranty claims, and design changes are no longer being offered.[28]
On July 14, 2015, all Windows 2003 support, including security updates and security-related hotfixes, will be terminated.[28]
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