Lead Analyst: Michael Cherry [bio]
Contributing Analysts: Chris Alliegro,Rob Helm, and Peter Pawlak

Many organizations are considering reducing or consolidating the number of servers they use for their computing infrastructure, general computing, and line-of-business applications. For Microsoft customers, consolidation of servers offers an opportunity to optimize the use of their computing resources, including hardware, administrative personnel, and physical plant dedicated to housing servers, while improving the level of service offered to users. For Microsoft partners, consolidation offers the opportunity to assist with the planning and migration of existing computing systems to the new consolidated system. And for Microsoft, consolidation offers the opportunity to move customers from older versions of the OS that customers perceive as "good enough" to the new Windows Server 2003, which offers the best platform for server consolidation because it can exploit the latest hardware trends, such as inexpensive 64-bit processors, is more secure, and offers better performance and reliability.

This report outlines the improvements in Windows Server 2003 for consolidation: enhancements to the base product as well as improvements designed to ensure the overall performance and reliability, along with improvements to storage, which allow for the amalgamation of small amounts of data from many servers into a consolidated data environment. The report also identifies issues that need to be addressed in planning for consolidation, once an organization has concluded Windows Server 2003 will support their efforts, and lists resources where additional information on consolidation can be found.