Windows Web Server 2003
Windows Server 2003 is a scaled family of web server editions that attempt at delivering Microsoft’s long-promised and long-awaited mature operating system. This may mean that Microsoft (finally) has a server that can handle the enormous loads of a major enterprise, or that it has a reasonably priced server that can be easily managed by the limited resources of a smaller company.
With this release Microsoft has certainly met a very high standard in the big four criteria: security, reliability, scalability, and performance. In addition, for some organizations Microsoft getting it right means having the correct special features. It also means competing with an industry-leading ease of use and the right pricing.
To meet these requirements, Windows Server 2003 is delivered in several editions, Web, Standard, Enterprise, and Datacenter, that have different capacities and price tags.
Along with the Windows dedicated Server 2003 Microsoft also created the .NET framework for application development. Programmers will discover that this server, along with its built-in application server elements and the revamped Web server, are a particularly effective environment for .NET applications. Provided, of course, that Microsoft Visual Studio .NET is the development tool of choice.
Being an evolution of NT & Win2K, Windows 2003 has retained most of the stable features of the previous two editions & is miles ahead of them in terms of reliability, stability & features. However it is still not in the same league as FreeBSD or NetBSD when it comes to mission critical applications. With a wide range of development tools & addons available for the Windows platform, Win 2003 is still one of the ‘easier’ OSs to deploy and use. But when it comes to price-tags, it is probably the most expensive server OS system available.
