History for Windows2000AdvancedServer

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Windows 2000 Advanced Server

*A brief introduction to Windows2000AdvancedServer, describing its
suitability for desktop, file serving and Web-Site hosting and any
specific hardware requirements. Include in your introduction a brief
outline of application support.*

A more powerful mid-range server that includes the full features set
of Windows 2000 Server and adds the advanced high-availability and
improved scalability required for enterprise and larger implementation
solutions in education "![#1]":#ref1.

Windows 2000 Advanced Server is the server operating system for
line-of business applications and e-commerce. Windows 2000 Advanced
Server includes all the features and application availability of
Windows 2000 Server, with additional scalability and reliability
features, such as clustering, designed to keep your business-critical
applications up and running in the most demanding scenarios
"![#2]":#ref2.

The Windows 2000 Server is "The mainstream server includes the
multipurpose capabilities required for workgroups and school site
deployments of file and print servers, application servers, web
servers, and communication servers" "![#1]":#ref1.

This looks to me as though this server is not designed to be used as a
desktop system, but has been designed for handling files and printers
and applications etc.

Experience in the past has shown there to be little to no application
support with this company, although there are a large number of
applications available through Microsoft or 3rd parties.

Suitability for file serving: Is apparently at least as good as
windows 2000. It does have SMP, expandable to 8gb of memory, It has
network load balancing (NLB)

Ease of use and availability of device support.

Microsoft is known for it's ease of use and availability of
hardware device drivers.

*- For each operating system, describe the technical characteristics
of process and memory management. For example, if each operating
system uses virtual memory management, indicate how prioritization of
threads is achieved, whether applications can access higher priority
threads and, if so, how.*

Demand paging is handled by Clustering. That is not only the faulting
page, but also the pages around it are loaded into memory.

Thread syncronization is handled by using spinlocks for kernel
threads, and dispatcher objects for applicatoin space threads. The
dispatcher objects can use mutexes, semaphores and events to help with
the sycronization.

Thread schedulization is handled by a priority and preemptive
scheduling algorithm. This system is not a "hard real-time" system,
but is fine for most server needs "![#3]":#ref3.

References

- <a name="ref1">![#1]</a> Microsoft http://www.microsoft.com/education/?ID=Win2kDatasheet#advanced

- <a name="ref2">![#2]</a> Microsoft http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/advancedserver/evaluation/business/overview/advanced.asp