Get ready for Windows .Net Server

"In cases like memory leaks, IIS can cycle itself down gracefully and bring up a new instance. You don't have to have someone in the network group go out and reboot. That is a great advantage," says Christopher Bowen, principal software engineer at Monster.com.

The minimum requirement for the latest beta version of Windows .Net Server are a 133-MHz processor, with at least 550MHz processor speed recommended; 128M bytes RAM minimum with at least 256M bytes recommended and 1.5G byte disk storage available for setup.

Sauter says that Wells Fargo is primarily interested in Windows .Net Server to improve its Active Directory deployment. Current versions of Active Directory have a limit of 5,000 users per group. The company, with 120,000 users, has Windows .Net Server installed on about 55 servers, including 20 Active Directory Domain Controllers and the rest hosting applications such as file and print servers, Web servers and SQL Server.

"That was pretty strange to see because it was prerelease code. I wasn't expecting it to be optimized. Which means that when they release it, it will be even faster," Feinman says. Corrigo has about 20 servers, 18 of which run Win 2000, and has been beta-testing Windows .Net Server on about a half-dozen machines.

Windows XP linkage

Until now, Windows XP has been primarily a consumer product; Microsoft has not been pushing it for corporations. That changes with Windows .Net Server, which has functionality that works best with XP on the desktop.

XP with Windows .Net Server will let network administrators set policies and manage user desktops in groups. And systems administrators can disable software remotely and prevent it from running on an end user's PC, Microsoft says.

Shadow Copy Restore lets end users keep older versions of files on the server. Users who make changes to a file can go back and restore an older version. That functionality requires XP on the desktop.

Windows Media Player, which is Windows .Net Server functionality designed to stream multimedia over a corporate intranet, will provide XP users with instant-on playback, eliminating the initial buffering delay, Microsoft says. That feature is not available on other clients.

Slow deployment

But for all its new features, Windows .Net Server deployment is likely to be slow.

Most users have not yet finished deploying Win 2000, says Dan Kusnetzky, an analyst at IDC. "It's unlikely that people not even finished deploying Windows 2000 are going to stop what they're doing and start over again with the planning and testing of a new product," he says.

IGetSmart.com of New York, a division of Workflow Management, which owns Standard Forms, is beta-testing Windows .Net Server but is in no rush to deploy it.

"In the last year and a half, we went from NT to 2000 to XP and now .Net Server. It's too much to swallow," says CIO Mark Resh. "We'll take our time and do it as we need it."

Many companies, such as Toyota Motor Sales USA of Irvine, Calif., will wait a while to be sure Windows .Net Server is stable. "A bleeding-edge environment has its pain," says David Nelson, national manager of enterprise architecture for the company.

Microsoft says companies that have deployed Win 2000 initially should consider using Windows .Net Server in spots where its functionality is needed, such as for Web services, Active Directory or streaming multimedia.

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