Enterprise savvy Windows 2000 DataCenter enters beta

The first beta of Windows 2000 DataCenter today shipped to nearly 300 testers, Microsoft officials say.

DataCenter is the high-end version of the forthcoming operating system and is the fourth and last version of the server to enter beta. It is expected to be in the hands of beta testers Monday. There are two other Windows 2000 server versions, Server and Advanced, and a desktop version called Professional.

DataCenter is designed for high-end, fault-tolerant computing such as data warehousing, server consolidation, large-scale simulations in science and engineering and online transaction processing.

"We've been talking about Windows 2000 Datacenter Server for a while, so it's very exciting for us to deliver it to our customers for testing," says Craig Beilinson lead product manager for Windows 2000. "It's a major milestone for us, and we definitely look forward to getting our customers' feedback on it."

Microsoft plans to team with server vendors to deliver the software and hardware in one package, according to company officials. It is expected to announce deals with those OEM's in the coming months. DataCenter will run only on certified hardware to ensure the software and all hardware components work together.

DataCenter features include four-node clustering and 32-node load balancing, 32-way symmetrical multiprocessing and 64GB of physical memory. DataCenter also features 32GB of RAM with Physical Address Extension (PAE) support. Intel's PAE technology is designed to optimize processing in large memory stores. DataCenter also supports Microsoft's Job Object API, which the company says lets computing resources be reserved or assigned to certain processes and for groups of processes to be tied to specific processors.

DataCenter is expected to ship 90 to120 days after the other versions of Windows 2000.

The Server, Advanced and Professional versions are expected to ship this year, but that time frame appears in jeopardy. Beta testers say Microsoft has pushed its release to manufacturing (RTM) date for the software back to December. It has been widely rumored that RTM would happen in November during the Comdex trade show Nov. 15 to19 in Las Vegas.

In addition, Microsoft said it shipped the Release Candidate 2 of Windows 2000 on Sept. 15 to 650,000 beta testers. However, not all the beta testers have received the software and some reported only receiving vouchers stating RC2 was on the way.

The delay could push the release of DataCenter well into the second half of next year.

Contact Senior Editor John Fontana

Other recent articles by Fontana