Growing businesses that require scalability from their IT infrastructure to accommodate growth and meet increased demand need look no further than Microsoft Windows Enterprise Server 2003 running on an Intel Real Server, according to Justin Agar and Mark Forbes from Axiz.
"The Enterprise Edition of Microsoft Windows Server 2003 is intended largely for clustered, failover environments that have a high need for scalability," states Agar, the Microsoft product manager at the distributor. "It has been designed specifically to meet the requirements of servers that carry mission-critical workloads, such as networking, messaging, inventory, customer service systems, databases and e-commerce Web sites, where downtime equates directly to a revenue loss."
According to Agar, the Enterprise Edition differs from Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition principally in its ability to cluster servers to facilitate greater load handling and in its support for high-performance servers where extraordinary reliability, exceptional business value and high availability even in the face of problems is critical.
Forbes states: "The addition of an Intel server to the mix increases the flexibility offered by the operating system by leveraging the latest 'Tiger 4` Itanium 2 technology to take maximum advantage of the performance benefits made possible in the Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition. Intel`s two- and four-way 64-bit servers not only capitalise on the enhancements designed into the latest version of the Microsoft server operating system but also offer full redundancy for systems that don`t tolerate any downtime."
He points to recent tests conducted by Intel on its servers running Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition which found that the solution delivered good manageability and performance over the network as well as in a clustered environment, while database management was vastly improved over the older 32-bit solutions.
Agar comments: "The Enterprise Edition of Windows Server 2003 now makes it possible for customers to create server clusters of up to eight nodes, while the increased memory capabilities allow users to augment the memory available for server processing to as much as 32GB of RAM in the 32-bit version and 64GB of RAM in the Itanium-based 64-bit version."
He concludes: "In the new era of always-on business, it is imperative that systems are always up and always responsive. Companies today expect technology to be a consistent enabler of business value, while meeting current challenges with the necessary security to ensure dependability. New technologies built into the operating system safeguard company networks from malicious or poorly designed code while also supplying significant improvements in security for public key infrastructure, Kerberos, Internet Information Services (IIS) in addition to support for smart cards and biometrics, making it a suitable choice even for companies with specialised requirements."
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Axiz is a distributor of products from market leaders HP, Microsoft, Intel, Kingston, Kalliba and LG, Lexmark, Symantec and 3Com, and also carries a wide range of leading brand components and solutions. More information is available at www.axiz.com.