Has Microsoft finally got it right? (Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server)

Name: kca101

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Product:	Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server
Date:	18/07/00 (1168 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Much easier to manage, can cut TCO

Disadvantages: Expensive to buy software, expensive to buy hardware that can run it

Microsoft Windows 2000 Server is a huge operating system and it is clear that the guys at Microsoft have put an immense amount of time and effort into it. As you install you quickly realize that this is more than simply an upgrade to Windows NT4 - is a complete re-write of the operating system.

Once again Microsoft is trying to get us to upgrade to their latest and greatest creation, but is it worth it? This review will try to cut out most of the technical jargon and look at the pros and cons of implementing Windows 2000 Server in a real world situation.

The Good

In my view there are 4 elements in Windows 2000 Server that stand out:

Active Directory

This is the single most important addition to 2000. For those of you familiar with Novell's NDS, this is pretty similar and allows management of servers, clients, peripherals and users from a single point. If used correctly this has the potential to make life much easier for systems administrators. You can use it to set permissions and properties on, say, a printer situated at another site.

IntelliMirror

I think this may turn out to be one of the most underused facilities, but it has the potential to save a lot of time. This can take a snapshot of a client PC and use this information to automatically repair damaged files. It can also perform "install on demand" which means you can do a basic install of Office 2000 on a client PC and when it needs additional files, IntelliMirror will upload these in the background.

MMC

The industry joke is that to manage an NT network you simply have to remember which button to press. Well, if that's the case then 2000 makes it even easier because you can have all the buttons in the same application if you want. Instead of having a separate application (like DHCP Manager, User Manager, etc) for each thing you want to do, you can customize the MMC (Microsoft Management Console) for
particular tasks. This is great if you have a member of staff who just needs access to certain server functions.

Terminal Services

Windows Terminal Server used to be a different operating system in NT4, now Terminal Services is integrated into the main o/s. If you have never used this before it is like going back to the days of dumb terminals where all the processing is done on the server. This means you can have a 386 running Windows 2000! Space does not permit a full description of the benefits but suffice it to say that your Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) will drop dramatically if you implement this on your network.

The Bad

Once again the minimum specifications have increased and once again Windows works best when each application has a separate server. Most people upgrading from NT4 will have to look seriously at the spec of their existing server. Personally, I would not consider running 2000 Server on anything less than a Pentium III with 512Mb RAM. If you can afford dual or quad processors, more RAM and a RAID subsystem, then 2000 will get more out of the system than pervious versions of Windows.

In order to get the full benefits of Active Directory every, yes every, computer on the network needs to be running 2000. With the costs of the operating system at about $130 per license it could be a very expensive upgrade.

It's huge, about twice the size of NT4 (Service Pack 6a), and this means more demand on hardware.


Why would you implement it?

When NT4 came out some people knocked it for being slower and less reliable than Novell, UNIX, etc. and couldn't believe it gained such a large share of the network market. Windows 2000 will succeed for the same reasons that NT4 did - it runs the applications that people want to use. It doesn't necessarily have to run them fast or well, because it's the only platform to run Exchange, SQL Server, Proxy Server and the rest
of the MS applications that have become pretty-much industry standard.

Most medium and large companies are already considering implementing it because of the potential to make management of the network easier. However, I expect that later this year non-IT people will be asking for the benefits of Exchange 2000 and other applications that need to run on 2000.

If you are considering implementing Windows 2000 Server make sure you know what you expect to get out of it and make sure you know how much it is going to cost.


Conclusion

It's expensive, it's late, but it's also very good. Over the next few months there will undoubtedly be stories of Microsoft selling less copies than expected of Windows 2000, but by the end of the year this will be the operating system of choice for most companies.

Summary: