Which edition of Windows Server 2008 includes support for up to 64 processors and provides unlimited virtual instances?

Scenario/Problem: For any operating system (OS), hardware must meet minimum requirements in order to run the OS, and in a production environment, your hardware needs to meet at least the optimal requirements. You need to assess whether the hardware your organization owns will meet or—better yet—exceed the minimum requirements for the Windows Server 2008 OS.

Solution: Determine what the minimum, recommended, and optimal requirements are for Windows Server 2008 and compare your findings with your hardware.

When determining whether you have the hardware requirements needed to install and run an OS, you need to focus on three hardware resources:

• Memory:

  • Minimum: 512MB
  • Recommended: 1GB
  • Optimal: 2GB

• Processor:

  • Minimum: 1Ghz
  • Recommended: 2Ghz
  • Optimal: 3Ghz

• Disk space needed for system partition:

  • Minimum: 10GB
  • Recommended: 40GB
  • Optimal: 80GB

---

Note - The recommendations take into consideration only what is needed to run the OS. You need to also determine whether any applications are going to run on the server and include any resources requirements for those applications.

---

---

Note - Keep in mind that if you increase your memory above 16GB, you will need to increase your disk space requirements to accommodate for the pagefile (if kept on a system partition), hibernation, and the dump file.

---

---

Note - You can use a tool called the Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit (MAP) to inventory your servers and generate a report to help determine which servers will work for your Windows Server 2008 installations. At the time of this writing, the tool is located at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb977556.aspx.

---

Perform Other Pre-Installation Tasks

Scenario/Problem: When you know that your server memory, processor, and disk space meet the requirements for Windows Server 2008, you need to perform some other recommended tasks before you actually install the Windows Server 2008 OS. What are these other tasks?

Solution: The following is a list of the tasks that should be performed before the actual installation.

• Check application compatibility

• Disconnect the uninterruptible power supply (UPS)

• Run the Windows Memory Diagnostic tool

• Identify mass storage device drivers

• Back up servers

• Disable virus protection software

• Prepare Active Directory

Some or all of these tasks are recommended, depending on the path of installation and whether this is a new installation or an upgrade from an existing OS; in addition, you need to perform the Active Directory prep only if you are going to promote your Windows Server 2008 machine to a domain controller and add it to an existing Windows 2000/2003 domain.

Now let’s take a closer look at each of these tasks.

Check Application Compatibility

Before you install Windows Server 2008, you must be sure that any third-party applications you plan to run on the server will be supported. One way you can do this is to contact the application vendor and get documentation on whether the application will run on Windows Server 2008. In a real-world environment, the documentation is very important because if things do not work as expected, you may be able to save your job by providing the documentation. (Obviously, you would have tested the application on a development server first.)

Another tool that you can use is the Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit 5.0 (ACT 5.0). This tool can be used to collect compatibility data about your environment into a centralized data store. Having this information can be essential when evaluating the risk involved with an OS upgrade.

---

Note - ACT 5.0 can also be used for lower-impact changes to your platform, such as a browser upgrade or a Windows Update release. Check the following site for more details: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc507852.aspx.

---

Disconnect the UPS

During the installation process, Windows Server 2008 attempts to detect devices attached to serial ports. If you have a UPS connected to a serial port, you may run into issues with the installation, so be sure to disconnect it until the installation is complete.

Run the Windows Memory Diagnostic Tool

You can use the Windows Memory Diagnostic tool to test the random access memory (RAM) on your server. At the time of this writing, you can download this tool and a guide from http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp. After you download the tool, you can perform the following steps:

1. Run the downloaded file mtinst.exe to start the setup for the Windows Memory Diagnostic tool.

2. Choose Create Startup Disk to install Windows Memory Diagnostic onto a floppy disk or choose Save CD Image to Disk to use a CD-ROM to which you can boot the server.

3. Reboot the server to the disk you just created.

4. The server will boot to the Windows Memory Diagnostic tool interface and automatically start the first test. It will continue to run tests with the same settings until you exit or pause.

---

Note - To run a more thorough test on the memory, you can choose to run the extended test suite by pressing T while the Windows Memory Diagnostic tool is running. If you do this, it would be best to leave the tool to run overnight.

---

Identify Mass Storage Device Drivers

If a vendor has supplied a driver file for your storage device, now would be a good time to have that file stored on a floppy, a CD, a DVD, or a flash drive. You should store files either in the root directory or in a folder named according to the processor architecture. During the installation, you will have the opportunity to load this driver.

Back Up Servers

Backing up servers is standard procedure when making any platform changes. Make sure you have a good backup of any critical data. When performing an OS upgrade, it is a good idea to make sure you have a backup of the boot and system partitions as well as the system state data. An alternative way to back up this configuration data is to create a backup set for Automated System Recovery (ASR).

---

Note - You should consider this recommendation if you are planning to upgrade an existing OS.

---

Disable Virus Protection Software

Virus protection software can affect the speed of your upgrade. Every file that is copied to your server will need to be scanned.

---

Note - You should consider this recommendation if you are planning to upgrade an existing OS.

---

Prepare Active Directory

There are two steps in preparing the Active Directory service for a new Windows Server 2008 domain controller:

• Prepare the forest.

• Prepare the domain.

---

Note - You need to prepare Active Directory only if you are going to build a Windows Server 2008 domain controller that will be joined to an existing Windows 2000/2003 domain.

---

Let’s first go through the steps to prepare the forest:

1. Log on to the Schema Master of your existing domain with an account that is a member of either the Enterprise Administrators, Schema Administrators, or Domain Administrators group.

2. Copy the adprep directory from the sources\adprep on the Windows Server 2008 installation CD to the schema master.

3. From a command prompt, navigate to the adprep folder you just copied. Then run adprep/forestprep.

4. For a read-only domain controller (RODC), run adprep/rodcprep.

5. Wait for the task to complete and replicate prior to running the second portion of the ADS preparation.

When you have waited for the changes to replicate, you can follow these steps to prepare the domain:

1. Log on to the infrastructure master of your existing domain with an account that is a member of the Domain Administrators group.

2. Copy the adprep directory from sources\adprep on the Windows Server 2008 installation CD to the infrastructure master.

3. From a command prompt, navigate to the adprep folder you just copied and then run adprep\domainprep\gpprep.

4. Wait for the task to complete and replicate.

Now that you have completed some or all of the pre-installation tasks, you can start with the installation of Windows Server 2008. But first you must decide which edition of Windows Server 2008 you need for your environment.

Decide What Edition of Windows Server 2008 to Install

Scenario/Problem: Many different editions of Windows Server 2008 are available. The various editions allow support on x86, x64, and Itanium processors and also allow for native high availability, load balancing, and virtualization. You need to review all the various editions and decide which one best fits your organization’s needs.

Solution: You need to take a close look at each of the available editions of Windows Server 2008 and evaluate them in terms of your organization’s infrastructure goals.

The available editions are as follows:

• Windows Web Server 2008

• Windows Server 2008 Standard

• Windows Server 2008 Standard without Hyper-V

• Windows Server 2008 Enterprise

• Windows Server 2008 Enterprise without Hyper-V

• Windows Server 2008 Datacenter

• Windows Server 2008 Datacenter without Hyper-V

• Windows HPC Server 2008

• Windows Server 2008 for Itanium-Based Systems

---

Note - This chapter does not include descriptions of Windows Server 2008 Standard, Enterprise, and Datacenter without Hyper-V as these are identical to their corresponding counterparts with Hyper-V. However, editions without the Hyper-V role are available.

---

Windows Web Server 2008

The title really speaks for itself: This edition is built for a single purpose, as a web server. Windows Web Server 2008 comes with architectural enhancements included within IIS 7.0, ASP.NET, and Microsoft .NET Framework. This edition is used to deploy web pages, web sites, web applications, and web services.

Windows Web Server 2008 supports the following:

• 32GB RAM on 64-bit (4GB on 32-bit)

• Four multicore processors

Windows Server 2008 Standard

Windows Server 2008 Standard is a robust server OS that includes the following features to improve functionality, security, management, and reduce infrastructure costs:

• Web services

• Hyper-V (hypervisor-based virtualization)

• Terminal Services

• Presentation virtualization

• Application virtualization

• Network Access Protection (NAP)

• BitLocker

• RODCs

• Windows Service Hardening

• Bidirectional Windows Firewall

• Next-generation cryptography support

• Server Manager

• Windows Deployment Services

• Windows PowerShell

• Next-generation TCP/IP

• Server Core

Windows Server 2008 Standard supports the following:

• 32GB RAM on 64-bit (4GB on 32-bit)

• Four multicore processors

• 250 network access service connections (RRAS)

• 50 network policy server connections

• 250 terminal server connections

• Hyper-V virtualization with one free instance

Windows Server 2008 Enterprise

Windows Server 2008 Enterprise adds high availability, the latest in security, and scalability to the Standard edition. The following are some of its features:

• Failover clustering (up to 16 nodes)

• Fault-tolerant memory synchronization

• Cross-file replication

• Licensing for up to four additional virtual server instances

• Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS)

• Advanced certificate services

• Active Directory Domain Services (ADDS)

Windows Server 2008 Enterprise supports the following:

• Eight processors

• 2TB RAM on 64-bit (64GB RAM on 32-bit)

• Unlimited number of virtual private network (VPN) connections

• Unlimited Network Access Service connections

• Unlimited Network Policy Server connections

Windows Server 2008 Datacenter

This edition can be used for large-scale virtualization needs and added scalability for mission-critical applications in a large IT infrastructure. The following are some of the features of this edition:

• Large-scale virtualization (Licensing allows you to add an unlimited number of virtual instances.)

• Failover clustering

• Dynamic hardware partitioning

• Windows Server High Availability Program

Windows Server 2008 Datacenter supports the following:

• 2TB RAM on 64-bit(64GB on 32-bit)

• 64 x64 64-bit processors and 32 x86 32-bit processors

• Unlimited virtual image use rights

• Hyper-V based unlimited virtualization use

• 16-node failover clustering

• Hot add/replace memory and processors on supported hardware

• Fault-tolerant memory synchronization

• Cross-file replication (DFS-R)

• Unlimited Network Access Services connections (RRAS)

• Unlimited Network Policy Server connections

• 65,535 terminal server connections

• Advanced identity management

Windows HPC Server 2008

Used specifically for high-performance computing (HPC), this edition enables you to scale to thousands of processing cores. This is advantageous when you’re load balancing heavy workloads across multiple processors and need to manage and monitor your HPC environment for stability and health.

Windows Server 2008 for Itanium-Based Systems

Windows Server 2008 for Itanium-Based Systems allows you to run Windows Server 2008 on Itanium-based systems. Itanium-based processors have the ability to handle intensive computing needs of business-critical applications in an enterprise-level environment. An Itanium processor uses a whole new architecture, not just extending the 32-bit architecture to 64-bit, and it can thus be called a native 64-bit processor. Another feature of this processor is the Intel Explicitly Parallel Instruction Computing (EPIC) architecture, which improves performance of the processor through instruction-level parallelism, maximizing opportunities to execute instructions in parallel. Up to six instructions can be processed in parallel.

Windows Server 2008 for Itanium-Based Systems supports the following:

• Dynamic hardware partitioning

• Use of Itanium RAS (Reliability, Availability, and Scalability)

• 2TB RAM

• 64 Itanium processors or 64 cores

• Hot add/replace of memory and processors

• Eight-node failover clustering

• Fault-tolerant memory synchronization

• Licensing for unlimited virtual instances with a third-party virtualization product