Microsoft’s platform play hits the big time

With each new release of Microsoft's server operating system, pundits are moved to declare that this one is the first Windows truly suited to the enterprise. And it is especially tempting to hang that tag on Windows Server 2003.

Free IT resource Open Source Business Conference (OSBC) May 22-23, 2007 Sponsored by OSBC Free IT resource TechNet: More ways to know it, share it, and keep it running. Sponsored by Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Microsoft, microsoft.com/windows Summary: Windows Server 2003 extends Microsoft's tradition of linking its operating system to a complete application platform. Improvements at the OS level bestow performance and capacity benefits, sometimes striking benefits, to both .Net and traditional Windows server software. Cost: Starts at $399 for Web edition Platforms: 32-bit Intel Pentium, Xeon and compatibles; 32-bit AMD Athlon; 64-bit Intel Itanium; AMD Opteron in 32-bit mode (64-bit support planned for later in 2003)

Windows crossed the enterprise line back in the mid-1990s with the release of Windows NT Option Pack 4, when Microsoft started bundling business essentials such as Web, object, transaction, and messaging services into the foundation OS. Windows made the leap from file/print server to robust application platform. Developers went nuts over Visual Studio, especially Visual Basic and Active Server Pages, assuring Windows' ascent into the world of business server computing.

No software product spends as much time in development as an operating system. The market hasn't seen a fresh edition of Windows Server in nearly four years, and the enterprise market has changed substantially in terms of customer expectations, economic viability, and competitors' strategies. The present reality is not what Microsoft had in mind when it put its next-generation server platform on the drawing board.

Even so, the technology Microsoft pulled together for Windows Server 2003 is its best effort by far, an uncannily good fit for the myriad challenges modern IT organizations face. It is, in the best sense, a total solution in a box.

In the lab, installed on an Intel dual Xeon reference platform and on a Newisys dual Opteron machine, the new Windows server clearly outclassed Windows 2000. At the core level, hyperthreading on the Xeon and NUMA (nonuniform memory access) on Opteron boost baseline performance noticeably and smooth task-switching.

Refinements to disk I/O and SMP (symmetric multiprocessing) scaling can be seen especially clearly in SQL Server 2000 and Terminal Services. Lights-out management hardware in both servers was enabled automatically during the installation. Experienced Windows admins will find "secure by default" a pain in the neck at first, but no one can argue against the necessity of having Windows Server 2003 install in a locked-down state.

Of course the cost, bizarre licensing terms, forced migration, and confusing packaging will turn many companies away. But if a decision could be made on purely technical grounds, Windows Server 2003 would be an unquestionably worthwhile investment.

Platform or OS?

Since Microsoft made the strategic decision to throw everything but the kitchen sink into the box with their OS -- only hardcore Windows developers realize how much standard functionality Windows 2000 Server contains -- competing vendors have alternately mimicked and derided the all-inclusive platform approach.

For example, the only way Sun Microsystems could construct a competitive platform was to combine Solaris with J2EE. Sun undertook that decision grudgingly, after years of berating Microsoft for failing to see the wisdom of separating the OS from the application platform. Sun's Solaris/J2EE combination is now bundled with their server hardware.

But Sun remains defiant. When Sun refers to the "Java platform," it is claiming that the OS is irrelevant. That may be a bit too convenient to be taken seriously -- if Sun can get the market to agree with that assertion, Microsoft won't be able to make money from Windows. Nonetheless, J2EE does run atop many different operating systems, including Windows. It abstracts system services so that programmers can code mostly without regard for the underlying OS. J2EE implements its own stack of network and data-handling services to smooth out the differences between various OSes' standard facilities.

In contrast, Microsoft binds its enterprise application platform so tightly to Windows that it would be a monstrous task to pry the two apart. And apart from religious and political debates, there hasn't been much call from the market to make the Microsoft application platform run anywhere but Windows.

Some may be reluctant to admit it, but developers and administrators like the way the Windows OS, its standard services, the Win32 API, the .Net framework, and the combined administrative tools fit together. Windows Server 2003 bolsters, fills out, and integrates the pieces of Windows so thoroughly that no one can argue convincingly for breaking the components apart.