TERM PAPER COMPUTER NETWORKS CAP:256 REG. No.

: 11104216 Name: Himanshu sapehia TOPIC:

Windows Server 2003

Windows Server 2003 (sometimes referred to as

Win2K3) is a server operating system produced by Microsoft, released on April 24, 2003. An updated version, Windows Server 2003 R2, was released to manufacturing on December 6, 2005. Its successor,Windows Server 2008, was released on February 4, 2008. It is based on Windows XP, basically becoming an enhanced version of XP. According to Microsoft, Windows Server 2003 is more scalable and delivers better performance than its predecessor, Windows 2000.

Web
Windows Server 2003 Web is meant 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 and provides a platform for 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. The .NET Framework version 2.0 is not included with Windows Server 2003 Web, but can be installed as a separate update from Windows Update. Windows Server 2003 Web supports a maximum of 2 physical processors and a maximum of 2GB of RAM.However, an instance of Windows Server 2003 Web cannot act as a domain controller.It is the only edition of Windows Server 2003 that does not require Client Access Licenses when used as the internet facing

server frontend 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.

Features
Distributed File System (DFS): DFS allows multiple network shares to be aggregated as a virtual file system. Support for SAN and iSCSI: Computers can connect to a Storage Server over the LAN, and there is no need for a separate fibre channel network. Thus a Storage Area Network can be created over the LAN itself. iSCSI uses the SCSI protocol to transfer data as a block of bytes, rather than as a file. This increases performance of the Storage network in some scenarios, such as using a database server. Virtual Disc Service: It allows NAS devices,RAID devices and SAN shares to be exposed and managed as if they were normal hard drives. JBOD systems:JBOD(Just a bunch of discs) systems, by using VDS, can manage a group of individual storage devices as a single unit. There is no need for the storage units to be of the same maker and model. Software and Hardware RAID: Windows Storage Server 2003 has intrinsic support for hardware implementation of RAID. In case hardware support is not available, it can use software enabled RAID. In that case, all processing is done by the OS. Multi Path IO (MPIO): It provides an alternate connection to IO devices in case the primary path is down.

Many software vendors work hard to constantly improve their products, and Microsoft is no exception. Without keeping up with the latest technological advances, most software products will eventually fall into obscurity. Although Im not a Microsoft insider, I can offer some educated guesses into what Microsofts Product Managers were thinking as they decided what would be done to make Windows Server 2003 a compelling upgrade. Lets take a look at how Windows Server 2003 fits in. First, Microsoft is trying to follow up on an already successful product linethe Windows 2000 Server platform. In some ways, this can be a more difficult task than fixing an older operating system or application that didnt meet most of its customers needs. Many organizations have migrated to Windows 2000 Server and are quite happy with that operating system. In fact, many of Microsofts customers (especially many large organizations) are happy running Windows NT 4.0 Server. So, the challenge for Microsoft is to provide compelling reasons for customers to upgrade their server operating systems. In general, Windows Server 2003 is an incremental improvement over its predecessor, Windows 2000 Server. Those that are deploying the operating system will find that

its not as large a shift as was moving from Windows NT 4.0 to the Windows 2000 platform. For example, the architecture of the Active Directory remains largely unchanged, although there have been several improvements in performance, reliability, and management features. In fact, Microsofts marketing efforts are strongly focused on providing compelling reasons for Windows NT 4.0 users to upgrade to Windows Server 2003. Of course, thats not to say that organizations wont find it worthwhile to upgrade from Windows 2000 Server.

Updates
Service Pack 1
On March 30, 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: Security Configuration Wizard: A tool that allows administrators to more easily research, and make changes to, security policies. Hot Patching: This feature is set to extend Windows Server 2003's ability to take DLL, Driver, and non-kernel patches without a reboot. IIS 6.0 Metabase Auditing: Allowing the tracking of metabase edits. Windows Firewall: Brings many of the improvements from Windows XP Service Pack 2 to Windows Server 2003; also with the Security Configuration Wizard, it allows administrators to more easily manage the incoming open ports, as it will automatically detect and select default roles. Other networking improvements include support for Wireless Provisioning Services, better IPv6 support, and new protections against SYN flood TCP attacks. Post-Setup Security Updates: A default mode that is turned on when a Service Pack 1 server is first booted up after installation. It configures the firewall to block all incoming connections, and directs the user to install updates. Data Execution Prevention (DEP): Support for the No Execute (NX) bit which helps to prevent buffer overflow exploits that are often the attack vector of Windows Server exploits.

Windows Media Player version 10 Internet Explorer 6 SV1 (e.g. 'IE6 SP2') Support for fixed disks bearing data organized using the GUID Partition Table system A full list of updates is available in the Microsoft Knowledge Base.

Service Pack 2
Service Pack 2 for Windows Server 2003 was released on March 13, 2007. The release date was originally scheduled for the first half of 2006. On June 13, 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. 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), 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.

A Brief History of Windows

Microsoft has had a long and successful history with its Windows line of operating systems. With more than a dozen editions of various client and server versions of the Windows platform, it can be very difficult to keep track of these. Since many systems administrators will need to support a wide range of operating systems, well take a brief look at a history of Windows in this section. This information will be particularly useful if you are new to supporting Microsoft technologies, but if you are a veteran, you might like to remember just how far this software platform has come. Unfortunately, Microsofts marketing group has come up with some very nonintuitive names for the versions of their operating systems. The end result seems to be a lot of confusion over the various OSes and how they interrelate. Lets take a very brief look at the various operating systems that have been developed by Microsoft. Chronologically, the major server-side network operating systems are: Windows NT Advanced Server 3.1 Windows NT Server 3.5 Windows NT Server 3.51 Windows NT Server 4.0 Windows NT Server 4.0 Enterprise Edition Windows NT Server 4.0 Terminal Server Edition Windows 2000 Server Platform (multiple editions) Windows Server 2003 Platform (multiple editions) The client operating systems can be divided into two groups. The first group includes the Windows operating systems that are based on the Windows NT platform:

 Windows NT Windows NT Workstation 4.0 Windows 2000 Professional Windows XP (Home and Professional) The client operating systems that are based on MS-DOS and earlier versions of Windows include: Windows 3.x Windows 95 Windows 98 Windows Millennium Edition (Me) Many of these operating systems had several revisions and updates. For example, Microsoft made limited releases of its Windows 98 Second Edition (SE) operating system, and Service Packs and Option Packs have added significant functionality to older products such as Windows NT 4.0. An Overview of Windows Server 2003 From some fairly humble beginnings, Microsoft has made its Windows platform a powerful force in the network operating system marketplace. With a huge market share for client operating systems and a growing share of the server marketplace, the Windows platform is the default operating system for many organizations throughout the world, ranging in size from Mom & Pop shops to global enterprises. Of course, its likely that you already know this, since youre pursuing a career involving Microsofts products!

Windows Server 2003 R2

Windows Server 2003 R2 is the successor of Windows Server 2003, released to manufacturing on December 6, 2005. It is released for IA-32 and x64 platforms but not for IA-64. 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 R2. Branch Office Server Management Centralized management tools for file and printers Enhanced Distributed File System (DFS) namespace management interface

More efficient WAN data replication with Remote Differential Compression.

Identity and Access Management

Extranet Single Sign-On and identity federation Centralized administration of extranet application access Automated disabling of extranet access based on Active Directory account information User access logging Cross-platform web Single Sign-On and password synchronization using Network Information Service (NIS) Storage Management File Server Resource Manager (storage utilization reporting) Enhanced quota management File screening limits files types allowed Storage Manager for Storage Area Networks (SAN) (storage array configuration) Server Virtualization A new licensing policy allows up to 4 virtual instances per physical instance of Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise and unlimited virtual instances per physical instance of Windows Server 2003 R2 Datacenter

Utilities and SDK for UNIX-Based Applications

This add-on gives a relatively full Unix development environment. It consists of:

Base Utilities
SVR-5 Utilities Base SDK

GNU SDK
GNU Utilities Perl 5 Visual Studio Debugger Add-in

Support lifecycle
On July 13, 2010, Windows Server 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. On July 14, 2015, all Windows Server 2003 support, including security updates and security-related hotfixes, will be terminated.

Windows Storage Server

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, which allows responsibility for serving clients to be shared in such a way that if one server fails then other servers can take over (often termed a failover) which also improves fault-tolerance. 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%. Windows Storage Server R2 provides an index-based, full-text search based on the indexing engine already built into Windows server. 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 String Bean software. 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.

Datacenter
Windows Server 2003 Datacenter is designed for infrastructures demanding high security and reliability. Windows Server 2003 is available for IA-32, Itanium, and x64 processors. It supports a maximum of 32 physical processors on IA-32 platform or 64 physical processors on x64 and IA-64 hardware. IA-32 versions of this edition support up to 64 GB of RAM. With Service Pack 2 installed, the x64 versions support up to 1 TB while the IA-64 versions support up to 2 TB of RAM. Windows Server 2003 Datacenter also allows limiting processor and memory usage on a perapplication basis. This 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. The Datacenter edition, like the Enterprise edition, 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 SAN.

Windows Compute Cluster Server

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 super computing 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.

Editions
Windows Server 2003 comes in a number of editions, each targeted towards a particular size and type of business. In general, all variants of Windows Server 2003 have the ability to share files and printers, act as an application server, 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.

Web
Windows Server 2003 Web is meant 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 and provides a platform for 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. The .NET Framework version 2.0 is not included with Windows Server 2003 Web, but can be installed as a separate update from Windows Update.

Windows Server 2003 Web supports a maximum of 2 physical processors and a maximum of 2GB of RAM. However, an instance of Windows Server 2003 Web cannot act as a domain controller. It is the only edition of Windows Server 2003 that does not require Client Access Licenses when used as the internet facing server frontend 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.

Standard
Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Standard 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. A specialized version for the x64 architecture (AMD64 and EM64T, called collectively x64 by Microsoft) was released in April 2005. The IA-32 version supports up to 4 physical processors and up to 4 GB RAM; the x64 version is capable of addressing up to 32 GB of RAM and also supports Non-Uniform Memory Access.

Enterprise
Windows Server 2003 Enterprise is aimed towards medium to large businesses. It is a full-function server operating system that supports up to 8 physical 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 RAMthrough PAE (added with the /PAE boot string). Enterprise Edition also comes in specialized versions for the x64 and Itanium architectures. With Service Pack 2 installed, the x64 and Itanium versions are capable of addressing up to 1 TB and 2 TB of RAM, respectively. This edition also supports Non-Uniform Memory Access (NUMA). It also provides the ability to hot-add supported hardware. Windows Server 2003 Enterprise is also the required edition to issue custom certificate templates.

Datacenter
Windows Server 2003 Datacenter is designed for infrastructures demanding high security and reliability. Windows Server 2003 is available for IA-32, Itanium, and x64 processors. It supports a maximum of 32 physical processors on IA-32 platform or 64 physical processors on x64 and IA-64 hardware. IA-32 versions of this edition support up to 64 GB of RAM. With Service Pack 2 installed, the x64 versions support up to 1 TB while the IA-64 versions support up to 2 TB of RAM. Windows Server 2003 Datacenter also allows limiting processor and memory usage on a perapplication basis. This 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. The Datacenter edition, like the Enterprise edition, 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 SAN.