Updated: July 10, 2020 (July 12, 2004)
SidebarWhat's New in Windows Server 2003 Datacenter?
In mid-2002, Microsoft began offering an advanced version of Windows 2000 Server called Datacenter Edition through selected OEMs. Targeted at customers willing to pay extra for exceptional reliability, availability, and scalability, Datacenter is not only a server technology but also a channel program that requires vendors to offer special levels of coordinated support, testing, certification, and availability guarantees. This means that servers capable of running Windows Datacenter are both the largest and best-tested servers available, and therefore good candidates for consolidation scenarios. Windows Datacenter OEMs are free to offer both clustered and nonclustered systems running the Datacenter Edition, but the OS itself is not available to customers separate from the hardware.
The program has changed slightly with the launch of Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition:
64-bit systems. Datacenter vendors may now offer 64-bit systems, with support for up to 64 processors and 512GB of memory.
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