Enterprise Memory Architecture. Allows applications that perform transaction processing or decision support on large data sets to keep more data in memory for greatly improved performance. Windows 2000 Advanced Server supports physical memories greater than 4 GB on Alpha-based and Intel Pentium II Xeon systems. Depending on the specific platform, physical memory sizes as large as 64 GB can be supported.

Increased SMP scalability. Supports up to four processors processors on a clean install and up to eight processors on an upgrade.

Windows Clustering. Allows you to connect multiple servers to form a cluster of servers that work together as a single system. Windows Clustering provides the following benefits:

High-availability. Provides high availability for mission-critical applications, including the ability to automatically detect the failure of an application and quickly restart it on a different server. In addition, when one server in the cluster fails, another server in the cluster can be used to restore service to users.

Network load balancing. Provides high availability and scalability for network-based services, such as TCP/IP and Web services.

Component load balancing clusters. Allow you to create a cluster that does class load balancing across COM+ application server computers creating application clusters that allow organizations to scale applications by simply plugging in additional nodes.

Windows 2000 Datacenter Server

Windows 2000 Datacenter Server builds upon the features in Windows 2000 Advanced Server, making it the most powerful and functional server operating system ever offered by Microsoft.

Key benefits of Windows 2000 Datacenter Server include the following:

Support for up to 16 processors or up to 32 processors through Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs)

Support for up to 64 GB of memory on Intel-based systems and up to 32 GB on Alpha-based systems

Like Windows 2000 Advanced Server, Windows 2000 Datacenter Server provides both clustering and load balancing services as standard features. Windows 2000 Datacenter Server is optimized for the following:

Large data warehouses

Econometric analysis

Large-scale simulations in science and engineering

Online transaction processing

Server consolidation projects

Large-scale ISPs and Web-site hosting

Lesson Summary

Windows 2000 Advanced Server includes all of the same features as Windows 2000 Server and additional features that provide a highly scalable, interoperable, available, and manageable operating system. One of these additional features is Enterprise Memory Architecture, which allows applications that perform transaction processing or decision support on large data sets to keep more data in memory for greatly improved performance. Windows 2000 Advanced Server supports physical memories greater than 4 GB on Alpha-based and Intel Pentium II Xeon systems. Depending on the specific platform, physical memory sizes as large as 64 GB can be supported.

Windows 2000 Advanced Server also supports increased SMP scalability with support for up to four processors and Windows Clustering, which allows you to connect multiple servers to form a cluster of servers that work together as a single system. Two key benefits of Windows 2000 Datacenter Server are support for up to 16 processors, with support for up to 32 processors through OEMs, and support for up to 64 GB of memory. Like Windows 2000 Advanced Server, Windows 2000 Datacenter Server provides both clustering and load balancing services as standard features.