Network+ 2005 In Depth (P14) ppt

In this case, a server running the database middleware canaccept the queries from each different type of client.. Imaginethat you are the network administrator for a large college campus

Now, however, thanks in part to broader support of multiple file access protocols, most everytype of client can authenticate and access resources via any NOS Usually, the NOS manufac-turer supplies a preferred client software package for each popular type of client For example,Novell recommends installing its “Novell Client for Windows NT/2000/XP” on Windows

2000 or Windows XP workstations Microsoft requires the “Client for Microsoft Networks”for Windows workstations connecting to its Windows Server 2003 NOS Client software otherthan that recommended by the NOS manufacturer may work, but it is wise to follow the NOSmanufacturer’s guidelines

In some instances, a piece of software called middleware is necessary to translate requests and

responses between the client and server Middleware prevents the need for a shared tion to function differently for each different type of client It stands in the middle of theclient and the server and performs some of the tasks that an application in a simple client/serverrelationship would otherwise perform Typically, middleware runs as a separate service—andoften on a separate physical server—from the NOS To interact with the middleware, a clientissues a request to the middleware Middleware reformats the request in such a way that theapplication on the server can interpret it When the application responds, middleware trans-lates the response into the client’s preferred format and issues the response to the client Mid-dleware may be used as a messaging service between clients and servers, as a universal querylanguage for databases, or as a means of coordinating processes between multiple servers thatneed to work together in servicing clients

applica-For example, suppose a library’s database of materials is contained on a UNIX server Somelibrary workstations run the Macintosh desktop operating system, while others run Windows

95, Windows XP, and Linux Each workstation must be able to access the database of als Ideally, all client interfaces would look similar, so that a patron who uses a Macintosh work-station one day could use a Linux workstation the next day without even noticing the difference.Further, the library can only manage one large database; it cannot maintain a separate databasefor each different type of client In this case, a server running the database middleware canaccept the queries from each different type of client When a Linux workstation submits aquery, the database middleware interprets the Linux instruction, reformats it, and then issuesthe standardized query to the database The database middleware server might next accept aquery from a Macintosh computer, which it then reformats into a standardized query for thedatabase In this way, the same database can be used by multiple different clients

materi-A client/server environment that incorporates middleware in this fashion is said to have a

3-tier architecture because of its three layers: client, middleware, and server To take

advan-tage of a 3-tier architecture, a client workstation requires the appropriate client software, forexample, a Web browser or remote terminal services client Figure 8-2 illustrates the concept

Users and Groups

After a client is authenticated by the NOS, it is granted access to services and resources aged by the NOS The type of access a client (or user) has depends on her user account andthe groups to which she’s assigned In this section, you will learn about users and groups ofusers Later, you will learn how to create users and groups and give them rights to resources ineach of the three common NOSs

man-You have probably worked with enough computers and networks to know why user names arenecessary: to grant each user on a network access to files and other shared resources Imaginethat you are the network administrator for a large college campus with 20,000 user names.Assigning directory, file, printer, and other resource rights for each user name would consumeall of your time, especially if the user population changed regularly To manage network access

more easily, you can combine users with similar needs and restrictions into groups.

In every NOS, groups form the basis for resource and account management Many networkadministrators create groups according to department or, even more specifically, according tojob function within a department They then assign different file or directory access rights toeach group For example, on a high school’s network, the administrator may create a group

FIGURE 8-2 Middleware between clients and a server

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called Students for the students and a group called Teachers for the teachers The tor could then easily grant the Teachers group rights to view all attendance and grade records

administra-on the server, but deny the same access to the Students group

To better understand the role of groups in resource sharing, first consider their use on a tively small scale Suppose you are the network administrator for a public elementary school.You might want to give all teachers and students access to run instructional programs from anetwork directory called PROGRAMS In addition, you might want to allow teachers to installtheir own instructional programs in this same directory Meanwhile, you need to allow teach-ers and administrators to record grade information in a central database called GRADES Ofcourse, you don’t want to allow students to read information from this database Finally, youmight want administrators to use a shared drive called STAFF to store the teachers’ perfor-mance review information, which should not be accessible to teachers or students Table 8-1illustrates how you can provide this security by dividing separate users into three groups:teachers, students, and administrators

rela-Table 8-1 Providing security through groups

Group Rights to PROGRAMS Rights to GRADES Rights to STAFF

Teachers Read, modify Full control No access

Administrators No access Read, modify Full control

After an NOS authenticates a user, it checks the user name against a list of resources and theiraccess restrictions list If the user name is part of a group with specific access permissions orrestrictions, the system will apply those same permissions and restrictions to the user’s account.For simpler management, groups can be nested (one within another) or arranged hierarchically(multiple levels of nested groups) according to the type of access required by different types ofusers The way groups are arranged will affect the permissions granted to each group’s mem-bers For example, if you created a group called Temps within the Administrators group fortemporary office assistants, the Temps group would be nested within the Administrators

TIP

group and would, by default, share the same permissions as the Administrators group Such

permissions are called inherited because they are passed down from the parent group

(Admin-istrators) to the child group (Temps) If you wanted to restrict the Temps users from seeing thestaff performance reviews, you would have to separately assign restrictions to the Temps groupfor that purpose After you assign different rights to the Temps group, you have begun creat-ing a hierarchical structure of groups NOSs differ slightly in how they treat inherited permis-sions, and enumerating these differences is beyond the scope of this book However, if you are

a network administrator, you must thoroughly understand the implications of hierarchical grouparrangements For the Network+ exam, you should at least understand how groups can be used

to efficiently manage permissions and restrict or allow access to resources

After the user and group restrictions are applied, the client is allowed to share resources on thenetwork, including data, data storage space, applications, and peripherals To understand howNOSs enable resource sharing, it is useful to first understand how they identify and organizenetwork elements

Identifying and Organizing Network Elements

Modern NOSs follow similar patterns for organizing information about network elements,such as users, printers, servers, data files, and applications This information is kept in a direc-

tory A directory is a list that organizes resources and associates them with their

characteris-tics One example of a directory is a file system directory, which organizes files and theircharacteristics, such as file size, owner, type, and permissions You may be familiar with thistype of directory from manipulating or searching for files on a PC NOSs do use file systemdirectories However, these directories are different from and unrelated to the directories used

to manage network clients, servers, and shared resources

Recent versions of all popular NOSs use directories that adhere to standard structures and

nam-ing conventions set forth by LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) LDAP is a

pro-tocol used to access information stored in a directory By following the same directory standard,different NOSs can easily share information about their network elements

According to the LDAP standard, a thing or person associated with the network is

repre-sented by an object Objects may include users, printers, groups, computers, data files, and applications Each object may have a multitude of attributes, or properties, associated with it.

For example, a user object’s attributes may include a first and last name, location, mail address,group membership, access restrictions, and so on A printer object’s attributes may include alocation, model number, printing preferences (for example, double-sided printing), and so on

In LDAP-compatible directories, a schema is the set of definitions of the kinds of objects and

object-related information that the database can contain For example, one type of object is aprinter, and one type of information associated with that object is the location of the printer.Thus, “printer” and “location of printer” would be definitions contained within the schema

A directory’s schema may contain two types of definitions: classes and attributes Classes (also known as object classes) identify what type of objects can be specified in a directory User

account is an example of an object class Another object class is Printer As you learned ously, an attribute is a characteristic associated with an object For example, Home Directory

previ-is the name of an attribute associated with the User account object, whereas Location previ-is anattribute associated with the Printer object Classes are composed of many attributes Whenyou create an object, you also create a number of attri-butes that store information about thatobject The object class and its attributes are then saved in the directory Figure 8-3 illustratessome schema elements associated with a User account object

FIGURE 8-3 Schema elements associated with a User account object

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To better organize and manage objects, a network administrator places objects in containers,

or OUs (organizational units) OUs are logically defined receptacles that serve only to

assem-ble similar objects Returning to the example of a school network, suppose each student, teacher,and administrator were assigned a user name and password for the network Each of these users

would be considered an object, and each would require an account (An account is the record

of a user that contains all of her properties, including rights to resources, password, name, and

so on.) One way of organizing these objects is to put all the user objects in one OU called

“Users.” But suppose the school provided a server and a room of workstations strictly for dent use The use of these computers would be restricted to applications and Internet accessduring only certain hours of the day As the network administrator, you could gather the stu-dent user names (or the “Students” group), the student server, the student printers, and thestudent applications in an OU called “Students.” You could associate the restricted networkaccess (an attribute) with this OU so that these students could access the school’s applicationsand the Internet only during certain hours of the day An OU can hold multiple objects Also,

stu-an OU is a logical construct—that is, a mestu-ans of orgstu-anizing other things; it does not representsomething real An OU is different from a group because it can hold and apply parameters formany different types of objects, not only users In the LDAP standard, directories and their

contents form trees A tree is a logical representation of multiple, hierarchical levels within a

directory The term “tree” is drawn from the fact that the whole structure shares a common

starting point (the root) and from that point extends branches (or containers), which may

extend additional branches, and so on Objects are the last items in the hierarchy connected to

the branches and are sometimes called leaf objects Figure 8-4 depicts a simple directory tree.

FIGURE 8-4 A directory tree

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Before you install a network operating system, be sure to plan the directory tree with currentand future needs in mind For example, suppose you work at a new manufacturing firm calledCircuits Now that produces high-quality, inexpensive circuit boards You might decide to cre-ate a simple tree that branches into three OUs: users, printers, and computers But if CircuitsNow plans to open new manufacturing facilities sometime in the future (for instance, onedevoted to making memory chips and another for transistors), you might want to call the first

OU in the tree “circuit boards.” This would separate the existing circuit board business fromthe new businesses, which would employ different people and require different resources Fig-ure 8-5 shows both possible trees

FIGURE 8-5 Two possible directory trees for the same organization.

Directory trees are very flexible, and as a result, are usually more complex than the examples

in Figure 8-4 Chances are that you will enter an organization that has already established itstree, and you will need to understand the logic of that tree to perform your tasks Later in thischapter, you will learn about Active Directory, which is the LDAP-compatible directory used

by the Windows Server 2003 NOS

Sharing Applications

As you have learned, one of the significant advantages of the client/server architecture is theability to share resources, thereby reducing costs and the time required to manage the resources

In this section, you will learn how an NOS enables clients to share applications

Shared applications are often installed on a file server that is specifically designed to run cations In a small organization, however, they may be installed on the same server that pro-vides other functions, such as Internet, security, and remote access services As a networkadministrator, you must be sure to purchase a license for the application that allows it to beshared among clients In other words, you cannot legally purchase one licensed copy ofMicrosoft Word, install it on a server, and allow hundreds of your users to share it

appli-Software licensing practices vary from one vendor to another A software vendor may sell anorganization a fixed quantity of licenses, which allows only that number of clients to use the

application simultaneously This type of licensing is known as per user licensing For example,

suppose a life sciences library purchases a 20-user license for a database of full-text articles from

a collection of Biology journals If 20 users are running the database, the 21stperson whoattempts to access the database will receive a message announcing that access to the database

is prohibited because all of the licenses are currently in use Other software vendors sell a

sep-arate license for each potential user Regardless of whether the user is accessing an application,

a license is reserved so that the user will not be denied access This practice is commonly known

as per seat licensing For example, if the life sciences library wanted to make sure each of its

15 employees could access the Biology journal database at any time, it would choose to

pur-chase licenses for each of the employees The application on the server could verify the userthrough a logon ID or the workstation’s network address, for example A third licensing option

is the site license, which for a fixed price allows an unlimited number of users to legally access

an application In general, a site license is most economical for applications shared by many

people (for example, if the life sciences library shared its Biology journal database with all of

the students on a university campus), whereas for small numbers of users, per seat or per userlicenses are more economical

After you have purchased the appropriate type and number of licenses, you are ready to installthe application on a server Before doing so, however, you should make sure your server hasenough free hard disk space, memory, and processing power to run the application Then fol-low the software manufacturer’s guidelines for a server installation Depending on the applica-tion, this process may be the same as installing the application on a workstation or it might bemuch different

After installing the software on a server, you are ready to make it available to clients Throughthe NOS, you must assign users rights to the directories where the application’s files areinstalled Users will at least need rights to access and read files in those directories For someapplications, you may also need to give users rights to create, delete, or modify files associatedwith the application For example, a database program may create a small temporary file on theserver when a user launches the program to indicate to other potential users that the database

is open If this is the case, users must have rights to create files in the directory where this porary file is kept An application’s installation guidelines will indicate the rights you need toassign users for each of the application’s directories

tem-Next, you will need to provide users with a way to access the application On Windows-based

or Macintosh clients and on some UNIX and Linux clients, you can create an icon on theuser’s desktop that is associated with the application file When the user double-clicks theicon, her client software issues a request for the server to open the application In response, theNOS sends a part of the program to her workstation, where it will be held in RAM This allowsthe user to interact with the program quickly, without having to relay every command over thenetwork to the server As the user works with the application, the amount of processing thatoccurs on her workstation versus the amount of processing that the server handles will varyaccording to the network architecture

You may wonder how an application can operate efficiently or accurately when multiple usersare simultaneously accessing its files After all, an application’s program file is a single resource

If two or more network users double-click their application icon simultaneously, how does theapplication know which client to respond to? In fact, the NOS is responsible for arbitratingaccess to these files In the case of multiple users simultaneously launching a network applica-tion from their desktop icons, the NOS will respond to one request, then the next, then thenext, each time issuing a copy of the program to the client’s RAM In this way, each client istechnically working with a separate instance of the application

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Shared access becomes more problematic when multiple users are simultaneously accessing thesame data files as well as the same program files For example, consider an online auction site,which accepts bids on many items from many Internet users Imagine that an auction is near-ing a close with three users simultaneously bidding on the same stereo How does the auctionsite’s database accept bid data for that stereo from multiple sources? One solution to this prob-lem is middleware The three Internet bidders cannot directly modify the database, located onthe auction site’s server Instead, a middleware program on the server accepts data from theclients If the database is not busy, the middleware passes a bid to the database If the database

is busy (or open), the middleware queues the bids (forces them to wait) until the database isready to rewrite its existing data, then passes one bid, then another, and another, to the data-base until its queue is empty In this way, only one client’s data can be written to the database

at any point in time

In most cases, an organization will designate a server as the print server—that is, as the server

in charge of managing print services A printer may be directly attached to the print server or,more likely, be attached to the network in a location convenient for the users A printer directlyattached to the network requires its own NIC and network address, as with any network node

In other cases, shared printers may be attached to networked workstations In order for theseprinters to be accessible, the workstation must be turned on and functioning properly Figure8-6 depicts multiple ways to share printers on a network

After the printer is physically connected to the network, it needs to be recognized and aged by the NOS before users can access it Different NOSs have different interfaces for man-aging printers, but all NOSs can:

man-◆ Create an object that identifies the printer to the rest of the network

◆ Assign the printer a unique name

◆ Install drivers associated with the printer

◆ Set printer attributes, such as location and printing preferences

◆ Establish or limit access to the printer

◆ Remotely test and monitor printer functionality

◆ Update and maintain printer drivers

◆ Manage print jobs, including modifying a job’s priority or deleting jobs from thequeue

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NOSs provide special interfaces for creating new printer objects and assigning them attributes.

In Windows Server 2003, the Add Printer Wizard takes you through the process of adding ashared printer step by step The first step in this process is to indicate whether the printer islocal or networked, as shown in Figure 8-7

In NetWare 6.x, the first step in setting up a shared printer is creating a new object A series

of menu options leads you through the process of creating a new object, beginning with a

FIGURE 8-6 Shared printers on a network

As a network administrator, you should establish a plan for naming printers beforeyou install them Because the names you assign the printers will appear in lists ofprinters available to clients, you should choose names that users can easily decipher.For example, an HP LaserJet 5000 in the Engineering Department may be called

“ENG_HP5000,” or a Xerox Phaser 4400N in the southwest corner of the buildingmay be called “Xe4400_SW.” Whatever convention you choose, remain consistent toavoid user confusion and to make your own job easier

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printer identification screen With a UNIX or Linux operating system, you can define a printerusing the lpd command at the shell prompt or, with many instances of UNIX and Linux, fol-low a GUI-based tool, similar to the Windows Add Printer Wizard.

As you create the new printer, the NOS will require you to install a printer driver, unless one

is already installed on the server This makes the printer’s device driver files accessible to userswho want to send jobs to that printer Before users can access the printer, however, you must

ensure that they have proper rights to the printer’s queue The printer queue (or share, as it is

known in Microsoft terminology) is a logical representation of the printer’s input and output.That is, a queue does not physically exist, but rather acts as a sort of virtual “in box” for theprinter When a user prints a document (whether by clicking a button or selecting a menu com-mand), he sends the document to the printer queue To send it to the printer queue, he musthave rights to access that queue As with shared data, the rights to shared printers can vary.Users may have minimal privileges, which allow them to simply send jobs to the printer, or theymay have advanced privileges, which allow them to change the priority of print jobs in thequeue, or even (in the case of an administrator) change the name of the queue

Networked printers appear as icons in the Printers folder on Windows and Macintosh stations, just as local printers would appear After they have found a networked printer, userscan send documents to that printer just as they would send documents to a local printer When

work-a user chooses to print, the client redirector determines whether the request should be trwork-ans-mitted to the network or remain at the workstation On the network, the user’s request getspassed to the print server, which puts the job into the appropriate printer queue for transmis-sion to the printer

trans-Managing System Resources

Because a server’s system resources (for example, memory and processor) are limited and arerequired by multiple users, it is important to make the best use of them Modern NOSs havecapabilities that maximize the use of a server’s memory, processor, bus, and hard disk The result

FIGURE 8-7 The Add Printer Wizard

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is that a server can accommodate more client requests faster—thus improving overall networkperformance In the following sections, you will learn about some NOS techniques for man-aging a server’s resources.

Memory

From working with PCs, you may be familiar with the technique of using virtual memory toboost the total memory available to a system Servers can use both physical and virtual mem-ory, too, as this section describes

Before learning about virtual memory, you should understand physical memory The term ical memory refers to the RAM chips that are installed on the computer’s system board and

phys-whose sole function is to provide memory to that machine The amount of physical memoryrequired by your server varies depending on the tasks that it performs For example, the min-imum amount of physical memory required to run the Standard Edition of Windows Server

2003 is 256 MB However, if you intend to run file and print sharing, Internet, and remoteaccess services on one server, additional physical memory will ensure better performance.Windows Server 2003, Standard Edition (the version of Windows Server 2003 designed tomeet the needs of most businesses) can support as much as 4 GB of RAM (When calculat-ing the appropriate amount of physical memory for your server, remember that the ability toprocess instructions also depends on processing speed.)

Another type of memory may be logically carved out of space on the hard disk for temporary

use In this arrangement, both the space on the hard disk and the RAM together form virtual memory Virtual memory is stored on the hard disk as a page file (or paging file or swap file),

the use of which is managed by the operating system Each time the system exceeds its able RAM, blocks of information, called pages, are moved out of RAM and into virtual mem-

avail-ory on disk This technique is called paging When the processor requires the information

moved to the page file, the blocks are moved back from virtual memory into RAM

Virtual memory is both a blessing and a curse On the one hand, if your server has plenty ofhard disk space, you can use virtual memory to easily expand the memory available to serverapplications This is a great advantage when a process temporarily needs more memory thanthe physical memory can provide Virtual memory is typically engaged by default; it requires

no user or administrator intervention and is accessed without the clients’ knowledge ever, as a network administrator, you can modify the amount of hard disk space available forvirtual memory.) On the other hand, using virtual memory slows operations, because access-ing a hard disk takes longer than accessing physical memory Therefore, an excessive reliance

(How-on virtual memory will cost you in terms of performance

Multitasking

Another technique that helps servers use their system resources more efficiently is

multitask-ing Multitasking is the ability of a processor to perform many different operations in a very

brief period of time If you have used multiple programs on a desktop computer, you have taken

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advantage of your operating system’s multitasking capability All of the major NOSs are ble of multitasking If they weren’t, network performance would be considerably slower, becausebusy servers are continually receiving and responding to multiple requests.

capa-However, multitasking does not mean performing more than one operation simultaneously (Acomputer can only process multiple operations simultaneously if it has more than one proces-sor.) In NetWare, UNIX, Linux, Mac OS X Server, and Windows Server 2003, the server actu-ally performs one task at a time, allowing one program to use the processor for a certain period

of time, and then suspending that program to allow another program to use the processor Thus,each program has to take turns loading and running Because no two tasks are ever actually per-

formed at one time, this capability is more accurately referred to as preemptive multitasking—

or, in UNIX terms, time-sharing Preemptive multitasking happens so quickly, however, that

the average user would probably think that multiple tasks were occurring simultaneously

Multiprocessing

Before you learn about the next method of managing system resources, you need to

under-stand the terms used when discussing data processing A process is a routine of sequential

instructions that runs until it has achieved its goal When it is running, a word-processing

pro-gram’s executable file is an example of a process A thread is a self-contained, well-defined task

within a process A process may contain many threads, each of which may run independently

of the others All processes have at least one thread—the main thread For example, to nate the waiting time when you save a file in your word processor, the programmer who wrotethe word-processor program might have designed the file save operation as a separate thread.That is, the file save part of the program happens in a thread that is independent of the mainthread This independent execution allows you to continue typing while a document is beingwritten to the disk, for example

elimi-On systems with only one processor, only one thread can be handled at any time Thus, if anumber of programs are running simultaneously, no matter how fast the processor, a number

of processes and threads will be left to await execution Using multiple processors allows ferent threads to run on different processors The support and use of multiple processors to

dif-handle multiple threads is known as multiprocessing Multiprocessing is often used on servers

as a technique to improve response time To take advantage of more than one processor on acomputer, its operating system must be capable of multiprocessing Depending on the edition,

a Windows Server 2003 computer may support up to 32 processors

Multiprocessing splits tasks among more than one processor to expedite the completion of anysingle instruction To understand this concept, think of a busy metropolitan freeway during rushhour If five lanes are available for traffic, drivers can pick any lane—preferably the fastest lane—

to get home as soon as possible If traffic in one lane slows, drivers may choose another, lesscongested lane This ability to move from lane to lane allows all traffic to move faster If thesame amount of traffic had to pass through only one lane, everyone would go slower and gethome later In the same way, multiple processors can handle more instructions more rapidlythan a single processor could

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Modern NOSs, including the most current versions of NetWare, UNIX, Linux, and Windows

Server 2003, support a special type of multiprocessing called symmetric multiprocessing,

which splits all operations equally among two or more processors Another type of

multipro-cessing, asymmetric multipromultipro-cessing, assigns each subtask to a specific processor Continuing

the freeway analogy, asymmetric multiprocessing would assign all semi trucks to the far-rightlane, all pickup trucks to the second-to-the right lane, all compact cars to the far-left lane, and

so on The efficiency of each multiprocessing model is open to debate, but, in general, metric processing completes operations more quickly because the processing load is more evenlydistributed

sym-Multiprocessing offers a great advantage to servers with high processor usage—that is, serversthat perform numerous tasks simultaneously If an organization uses its server merely for occa-sional file and print sharing, however, multiple processors may not be necessary You shouldcarefully assess your processing needs before purchasing a server with multiple processors Someprocessing bottlenecks are not actually caused by the processor—but rather by the time it takes

to access the server’s hard disks or by problems related to cabling or connectivity devices

Introduction to Windows Server 2003

Windows Server 2003 is the latest version of Microsoft’s NOS, released in 2003 WindowsServer 2003 is a redesign and enhancement of its predecessors, Windows 2000 Server and Win-dows NT Server Windows-based NOSs are known for their intuitive graphical user interface,

multitasking capabilities, and compatibility with a huge array of applications A GUI ical user interface; pronounced “gooey”) is a pictorial representation of computer functions that,

(graph-in the case of NOSs, enables adm(graph-inistrators to manage files, users, groups, security, pr(graph-inters,and so on Windows Server 2003 carries on many of the advantages of Windows 2000 Server,plus enhances its security, reliability, performance, and ease of administration

With Windows Server 2003, Microsoft in fact released four different, but related NOSs:Windows Server 2003, Standard Edition; Windows Server 2003, Web Edition; WindowsServer 2003, Enterprise Edition; and Windows Server 2003, Datacenter Edition Differencesbetween the editions can be summarized as follows:

◆ Standard Edition—Provides the basic resource sharing and management features

necessary for most businesses, including support for up to 4 GB of RAM and fourprocessors performing symmetric multiprocessing

◆ Web Edition—Provides added services for Web site hosting, Web development, and

Web-based applications

◆ Enterprise Edition—Provides support for up to eight processors performing

symmet-ric multiprocessing, up to 32 GB of RAM in the 32-bit version (up to 64 GB ofRAM in the 64-bit version), and clustering Designed for environments that need ahigh level of reliability and performance (Clustering is a fault-tolerance techniquediscussed in Chapter 13.)

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◆ Datacenter Edition—Provides support for up to 32 processors performing symmetric

multiprocessing in the 32-bit version (up to 64 processors in the 64-bit version), up

to 64 GB of RAM in the 32-bit version (512 GB of RAM in the 64-bit version),and clustering Designed for environments that need the highest degree of reliabilityand performance

Windows Server 2003 is a popular network operating system because it addresses most of anetwork administrator’s needs very well Microsoft is, of course, a well-established vendor, andmany devices and programs are compatible with its systems Its large market share guaranteesthat technical support—whether through Microsoft, private developer groups, or third-partynewsgroups—is readily available If you become MCSE-certified, you will be eligible to receiveenhanced support directly from Microsoft This enhanced support (including a series of CDs)will help you solve problems more quickly and accurately Because Windows operating sys-tems are so widely used, you can also search newsgroups on the Web and will probably findsomeone who has encountered and solved a problem like yours

Some general benefits of the Windows Server 2003, Standard Edition NOS include:

◆ Support for multiple processors, multitasking, and symmetric multiprocessing

◆ A comprehensive system for organizing and managing network objects, called ActiveDirectory

◆ Simple centralized management of multiple clients, resources, and services through a tomizable tool called the MMC (Microsoft Management Console)

cus-◆ Multiple, integrated Web development and delivery services that incorporate a highdegree of security and an easy-to-use administrator interface

◆ Support for modern protocols and security standards

Although Windows 2000 Server does support use of the NetBEUI protocol, WindowsServer 2003 does not

◆ Provisions for monitoring and improving server performance

◆ Support for high-performance, large-scale storage devices

Although Microsoft NOSs have long been appreciated for their simple user interfaces, somenetwork administrators have criticized their performance and security With the release of Win-dows Server 2003, Microsoft has implemented measures to address these criticisms Bear in

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