2000 Pro, Server or Advanced Server.

  • Thread starter Thread starter peeps
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peeps

Hi

I am after some advice on which version of Windows to use.
I currently have a customer who has 1 file server and about 20 client
machines, all clients are on Windows 2000 Pro or XP pro. (or will be)
Now don't laugh, but there server is Windows 98SE. Although 98 is a little
unstable it is doing a remarkable job and only requires rebooting about 1 or
2 times per week.

I have bee ntasked with a project of getting them of getting them
'stabalised' on a limited budget which makes me realise why the choice was
made not to move to a real server OS but I think they need to get rid of the
98 OS running as the server.

Here is what they do followed by what they will need to do followed by what
would be nice but not essential.

Current usage
File storage and sharing
Application server, they run a simple OEM SQL service for Customer
Management

Required Services
Some form of authentication (AD)

Nice to have
DHCP
DNS
Web services


Some of the 'nice to have' items can be supplied by there firewall which is
a SmoothWall box so not 100% essential. The reason I say this is that I am
hoping that the server could be replaced with a standard Windows 2000 Pro
machine rather than the MS Server products which are really quite a bit over
budget. IU would have to look at finding a reasonable priced 2nd user copy
od a server product but again reluctant to do this unless it is from a good
relaible legitimate source.

Finally, a Linux solution would not be out of the question with the
exception of the SQL service. Not ideal but this could be left running on a
plain old 2000 Pro machine as I do not believe authentication to the server
is required and hence no license required.


Any help appreciated.
 
As far as your required services, you can't run AD on a 2000
professional machine. Also, 2000 pro machines are limited to 10
concurrent connections, so if the office has more than 10 people, that
is going to be a no-go for the file services, etc.

As far as your "nice" services, 2000 pro has web services, but once
again, they are limited to 10 concurrent connections.

You might want to look at Small Business Server. It is pretty
reasonably priced. Read more here:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/sbs/default.mspx

Let me know if you have any other questions!

Regards,
Rick Gouin, MCSE
 
Rick

Thanks for your reply,

I have just had a thought. In their current situation (my customer) their
server is Windows 98 SE.
Are there any restrictions on this machine for concurrent connections
because they have 20 staff all accessing it.

How does the 10 connection restriction work on Win2k Pro? Can 20 users
connect (map a drive) to the 2k Pro machine but only 10 users use resources
at any one time?

I have searched for info on SBS but not been able to find anything of value
amongst the typical Microsoft Sales pitch. All I need to know about SBS
really is:

Does it have AD
Does it have DNS and DHCP
Does it have web services?
How much is a 20 CAL version?
What are the main differences between MS SBS and MS Server 2000.

It is difficult finding this information amongst all the blurb.

My alternative is to run the SQL service application (customer database) on
a Windows 2000 Pro machine and the rest on a dedicated Linux box.
 
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