Don’t have room in the budget for all the bandwidth you’d like? Users griping about Internet wait times? What’s an IT mom to do? What parents of modest means have always done: Plug the leaks, patch the holes, and stretch the meals with bread. In the meantime, Windows Server 2003 overtakes NT4: The number of website hostnames running Microsoft’s newest operating system, Windows Server 2003, overtook those running on Windows NT4 earlier this month.
Windows Server 2003: Speeding Internet Experience; Overtakes NT4
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The fact that win2k3 is overtaking winnt on the internet is no suprise, but i would bet that there are still more NT installs in offices, backoffice, PDCs, etc. The company I work for uses winNT as a PDC and we see no reason to change, as it’s not connected to the internet.
Just my $.02
I work for a Fortune 20 company and we are still using NT, with more than 1/3 a million employees.
This year is when we finally plan on upgrading to 2000 (just a few months before MS drops support of it too.
Don’t worry about MS dropping support for 2000…. It will still be there for a VERY long time. 98 support comes to mind at this point. MS does some really stupid things, but dropping support for 2000 isn’t going to be among them anytime soon.
…when the 6 month trial period expires 😉
1) “See what—or who—is hogging the pipe, and follow up when you find massive, unauthorized entertainment downloads”
One word: netlimiter. Bye Bye BT/Kazaa stealing all your upload speeds.
2) “Dionisio advocates running two or three proxy servers in a row that act as one.”
Or you could use one with a higher TTL. How is adding more proxies helping your budget?
3) and 4) are sane.
5) “On the server, run the lowest resolution possible—such as 600x800x256. … If you could run 16 colors, that would be even better, but you can’t get that low any more—256 is good enough. No wallpapers. Use the default background. No animation. Reduce the number of icons on the desktop, as well as in the Start menu.”
or how about just add more memory? The advice above would be excellent for an NT 4.0 server with 32MB ram, but memory prices have changed drastically for the better. Memory should be the least of your concerns.
I didn’t think anyone was even actually running websites on NT4.0.
Now I don’t know what to think of these amazing new numbers of W2003 websites.
Sorry, but I just can’t stop myself from laughing at the fifth suggestion.
Lower your screen resolution on a server? Geeze — even Apple lets your run a headless or command-line server these days.
Mainstream Support For Windows 2000 expires 31-Mar-2005. Extended support expires 31-Mar-2007.
These support options are defined as:
(1) Mainstream support includes all the support options and programs that customers receive today, such as no-charge incident support, paid incident support, support charged on an hourly basis, support for warranty claims, and hotfix support. After Mainstream support ends, Extended support will be offered for Business and Development software.
(2) Extended support includes all paid support options, as well as security-related hotfix support which is provided at no charge. Non-security related hotfix support requires a separate Extended Hotfix Support contract to be purchased within 90 days after Mainstream support ends. Microsoft will not accept requests for warranty support, design changes, or new features during the Extended support phase.
For those that are curious:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh;%5Bln];LifeWin
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh;%5Bln];lifepolicy
You’ll need to cut n paste the whole link text. Sorry.
5) “On the server, run the lowest resolution possible—such as 600x800x256. … If you could run 16 colors, that would be even better, but you can’t get that low any more—256 is good enough. No wallpapers. Use the default background. No animation. Reduce the number of icons on the desktop, as well as in the Start menu.”
That is why I don’t understand Windows. When I think of a server I think of a 1U rackmount system connected to a network and a serial console. It has no need for graphics because it has no monitor or keyboard. But whatever, its like talking to a brick wall.
Hi
its bad that windows doesnt offer a choice at all with regard to this. when i dont have a monitor and dont need a gui i should be able to work from the command line
jess
That is why I don’t understand Windows. When I think of a server I think of a 1U rackmount system connected to a network and a serial console. It has no need for graphics because it has no monitor or keyboard. But whatever, its like talking to a brick wall.
The amount of people who seem to think an idle GUI will have some perceivable negative effect is truly amazing.
Windows runs quite happily on headless 1U rackmount servers. Yes, there’s an idle login screen waiting on the other side of the monitor plug. No, it doesn’t matter to anyone with an inkling of an idea about what they’re doing.
“It’s like talking to a brick wall”, because it’s such an unimportant issue. The difference between a machine being plugged into a KVM and a machine plugged into a serial console switch is nothing more than semantics, practically speaking.
The problem is that it probably will have a negative effect in terms of resource usage. Why would you want to have a GUI running when you’ll probably never use it? It’s simply taking resources away from more important tasks.
5) “On the server, run the lowest resolution possible?such as 600x800x256
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that is just too tall, ANY server wit 2 or 4GB’s of RAM shouldn’t have to even WORRY about GRAPHICS… that is why most X86 server boards DON;T have AGP and only have ATI RAGE PRO 8MB on board…
I hate to burst your bubbles, but Win2k3, at least during the beta, had support for headless mode.
wake up drsmithy wake up….windows has headless edition for quite sometime now
wake up mr hmmm (IP: —.aoltw.net), sorry drsmithy
and MB headless edition doesn’t have any graphics running, unless u remote desktop into it. Is it so hard to understand that an idle login take very few, VERY FEW resources?
win2003 is more than winnt cos winnt is being replaced by linux2.4 + samba3.
my two cents
Why should parents with modest means waste their time with a Windows server in order to improve their internet experience ?
Instead, they could just grab a floppy or CD based firewall, install it and there they go … no messing around.
The problem is that it probably will have a negative effect in terms of resource usage.
It’s a non-problem. The resource usage is completely and utterly insignificant.
Why would you want to have a GUI running when you’ll probably never use it? It’s simply taking resources away from more important tasks.
Why would you care ? If an idle GUI is taking up any meaningful amount of resources from more important tasks, it’s time to upgrade that 386.
You’re probably one of these people who recompiles their kernel just to save 500k of RAM on a 512M system, right ?