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| Windows 2000 Server | |
| (Part of the Microsoft Windows family) | |
| Screenshot | |
 Screenshot of Windows 2000 Server |
|
| Developer | |
| Microsoft | |
| Web site: www.microsoft.com/windows2000 | |
| Release information | |
| Release date: | February 17, 2000 info |
| Current version: | 5.0 SP4 Rollup 1 v2 (5.0.3700.6690), September 13, 2005 info |
| Source model: | Shared source[1] |
| License: | Microsoft EULA |
| Kernel type: | Hybrid kernel |
| Support status | |
| Extended Support Period until July 13, 2010.[2][3] Security updates and security-related hotfixes will be provided free of cost. Paid support is still available. | |
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It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Windows 2000. (Discuss) |
Windows 2000 Server is the server edition of Windows 2000. It is available in four editions, including Windows 2000 Terminal Server:
- Windows 2000 Server
- Windows 2000 Advanced Server
- Windows 2000 Datacenter Server
- Windows 2000 Terminal Server
Contents |
Server family features
The Windows 2000 server family consists of Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2000 Advanced Server and Windows 2000 Datacenter Server.
All editions of Windows 2000 Server have the following services and features built in:
- Routing and Remote Access Service (RRAS) support, facilitating dial-up and VPN connections, support for RADIUS authentication, network connection sharing, Network Address Translation, unicast and multicast routing schemes.
- DNS server, including support for Dynamic DNS. Active Directory relies heavily on DNS.
- IPsec support and TCP/IP filtering
- Smart card support
- Microsoft Connection Manager Administration Kit (CMAK) and Connection Point Services
- Support for distributed file systems (DFS)
- Hierarchical Storage Management support including remote storage,[4] a service that runs with NTFS and automatically transfers files that are not used for some time to less expensive storage media
- Fault tolerant volumes, namely Mirrored and RAID-5
- Group Policy (part of Active Directory)
- IntelliMirror, a collection of technologies for fine-grained management of Windows 2000 Professional clients that duplicates users' data, applications, files, and settings in a centralized location on the network. IntelliMirror employs technologies such as Group Policy, Windows Installer, Roaming profiles, Folder Redirection, Offline Files (also known as Client Side Caching or CSC), File Replication Service (FRS), Remote Installation Services (RIS) to address desktop management scenarios such as user data management, user settings management, software installation and maintenance.
- COM+ and MTS
- MSMQ 2.0
- TAPI 3.0
- Security Support Provider Interface (SSPI)
- Integrated Windows Authentication (including Kerberos and SPNEGO authentication).
- MS-CHAP v2 protocol
- Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) and Enterprise Certificate Authority support
- Terminal Services and support for the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP)
- Internet Information Services (IIS) 5.0
The Server editions include more features and components, including the Microsoft Distributed File System (DFS) , Active Directory support and fault-tolerant storage.
Distributed File System
The Distributed File System (DFS) allows shares in multiple different locations to be logically grouped under one folder, or DFS root. When users try to access a network share off the DFS root, the user is really looking at a DFS link and the DFS server transparently redirects them to the correct file server and share. A DFS root can only exist on a Windows 2000 version that is part of the server family, and only one DFS root can exist on that server.
There can be two ways of implementing a DFS namespace on Windows 2000: either through a standalone DFS root or a domain-based DFS root. Standalone DFS allows for only DFS roots on the local computer, and thus does not use Active Directory. Domain-based DFS roots exist within Active Directory and can have their information distributed to other domain controllers within the domain — this provides fault tolerance to DFS. DFS roots that exist on a domain must be hosted on a domain controller or on a domain member server. The file and root information is replicated via the Microsoft File Replication Service (FRS).[5]
Active Directory
A new way of organizing Windows network domains, or groups of resources, called Active Directory, is introduced with Windows 2000 to replace Windows NT's earlier domain model. Active Directory's hierarchical nature allowed administrators a built-in way to manage user and computer policies and user accounts, and to automatically deploy programs and updates with a greater degree of scalability and centralization than provided in previous Windows versions. It is one of the main reasons many corporations migrated to Windows 2000.[citation needed] User information stored in Active Directory also provided a convenient phone book-like function to end users. Active Directory domains can vary from small installations with a few hundred objects, to large installations with millions. Active Directory can organise and link groups of domains into a contiguous domain name space to form trees. Groups of trees outside of the same namespace can be linked together to form forests.
Active Directory services could only be installed on a Windows 2000 Server, Advanced Server, or Datacenter Server computer, and cannot be installed on a Windows 2000 Professional computer. However, Windows 2000 Professional is the first client operating system able to exploit Active Directory's new features. As part of an organization's migration, Windows NT clients continued to function until all clients were upgraded to Windows 2000 Professional, at which point the Active Directory domain could be switched to native mode and maximum functionality achieved.
Active Directory requires a DNS server that supports SRV resource records, or that an organization's existing DNS infrastructure be upgraded to support this. There must be one or more domain controllers to hold the Active Directory database and provide Active Directory directory services.
Volume fault tolerance
Along with support for simple, spanned and striped volumes, the server family of Windows 2000 also supports fault-tolerant volume types. The types supported are mirrored volumes and RAID-5 volumes:
- Mirrored volumes: the volume contains several disks, and when data is written to one it is also written to the other disks. This means that if one disk fails, the data can be totally recovered from the other disk. Mirrored volumes are also known as RAID-1.
- RAID-5 volumes: a RAID-5 volume consists of multiple disks, and it uses block-level striping with parity data distributed across all member disks. Should a disk fail in the array, the parity blocks from the surviving disks are combined mathematically with the data blocks from the surviving disks to reconstruct the data on the failed drive "on-the-fly".
Security features
Windows 2000 Server includes security services for enterprise-wide network authentication. Developers can build secure intranet, extranet and Internet sites using many different types of standards, including 56-bit and 128-bit SSL/TLS, IPSec, Server Gated Cryptography, Digest Authentication, Kerberos v5 authentication, and Fortezza. Because the security infrastructure is integrated into the core of Windows 2000, all Web and Application Services can take advantage of it. Security of Windows 2000 Server can however be compromised, a number of viruses such as Code Red has been written that exploits security vulnerabilites in Windows 2000. To patch vulnerabilites in the operating system, users can go to Microsoft's Windows Update website.
