Benefits for a Business to Upgrade to Windows Server 2003 - Report Example

Benefits for a Business to Upgrade to Windows Server 2003 When Microsoft Corporation proudly announces the release of Windows Server 2003 on April 24, 2003, there were mix opinions among experts in the industry. They believed that the advantage of the new server is overestimated or overvalued. Some analyst says Microsoft's Server 2003 is just a minor refinement of their old Windows 200 Server. They added that even with a large number of enhancements included in the package, the 2003 version is more likely an improvement than a new innovation and therefore users should wait and do not rush to upgrade. These negative assessments have created uncertainty and the users are eager to know the real score behind it particularly those businesses using old Microsoft server products. They need to know and understand the benefit of upgrading to Windows Server 2003 so they can make the right decision. A company with an already stable system perhaps would wonder why I should upgrade my system when it seems fine and sufficient. Some will also probably ask why I should spend some more when I already have what we want. What's new What is the benefit Shall I gain from it Microsoft Windows Server 2003 for the comprehension of a typical user is simply an enhancement to Microsoft's previous server products such as NT 4.0 and Windows Server 2000. However, this latest operating system contains over 340 (Eurodata, 2004) improvements for Windows 2000 Server and the capability to handle different server functions that can significantly increase productivity and security that will give businesses added benefits. Similar to its predecessor, Server 2003 was built in the same tradition of strengths, superiority, and cost effectiveness to sustain business growth. In the real world, business are constantly changing, expanding, and seeking new ways to improve and support the demands of their organization. Growing organizations that are heavily relying on their computer network are looking for flexible and scalable systems that can greatly reduce their operating and administration cost. In addition, to ensure greater success, an organization wants real value on their investment and demand greater reliability and innovative functionalities with their server operating systems. Microsoft is much aware of these necessities and since the released of Windows 2000 Server substantially reviewed and studies all possible bugs and weak points to produce a much better operating system. According to Microsoft's Server 2003 White Paper (Microsoft, 2002), this operating systems provides various utilities, services, and features that could convince users to upgrade. One of the enticing new features of Server 2003 aside from being stable is its integrated platform that can be easily deploy and manage without security implications. This is to a certain extent viable considering the real world situation of company networks where combinations of Intranets and Internet are being used and continually being stretched to satisfy the organizations growing requirements. When an operating system is stable, it means more uptime and secured. This is exactly what Microsoft wants to sell; a fast, reliable, and secured platform with advanced connectivity that can provide a company greater competitive advantage in global marketplace (Eurodata, 2004). Improved Reliability, Windows Server 2003 provides device driver's resiliency that prevents defective drivers (that are known to be incompatible) that could unfavorably harm the server and holdup the company's operation. Furthermore, similar to XP, the Server 2003 is capable of device rollbacks (Ivens, 2003), restoration of last known good configuration, file protection, and application compatibility options. These features will ensure more uptime for the company network eliminating the possibility of system shutdown due to maintenance and restoration works (Microsoft, 2002). Improved Availability further fortifies network operational stability by providing Cluster Services. It ensures continuous connections between mission critical applications like databases, messaging systems, and file and print services. The Cluster Service ensures that when a certain node in cluster fails or become unstable another node will be automatically activated to carry on providing the service hence network operation and company business transactions continues. To further ensure availability, Server 2003 also comes with Network Load Balancing services that prevent network traffic congestion across server clusters consequently improving the availability and scalability of various Internet servers (Microsoft, 2002). Improved Scalability means 64-bit processing back by with up to 512 GB memory support that would take advantage of the newest hardware. Using 64-bit instead of the usual 32-bit improves performance and reliability of memory intensive applications like computer aided design software, huge database systems, data warehousing, business intelligence applications, web hosting, professional graphics applications and more. If the company is using multi-processor systems, NUMA or Non-Uniform Memory Access can give added scalability and better performance. NUMA will greatly lower the company expenses on hardware and maintenance because servers can now double their work and therefore fewer servers are needed by the company (Microsoft, 2002). Upgrading to Windows Server 2003 specifically those organizations still using an NT Server 4.0 and 2000, which supports terminated by Microsoft in 2004 (Everett, 2003), is a big step in realizing the full potential of Active Directory. For instance, the Active Directory Windows Server 2000 installation is not secure because it allows anonymous queries to be executed which also consumes valuable resources (Allen and Danseglio, 2005). An organization needs Active Directory for very obvious and problematic reason. A typical organization normally stores their files in different directories depending on the purpose of such file. These include emails and voice mails, HRD files, payroll, correspondence, templates, and more. Each of them independently treated as unique records that needs separate updating and sometimes erroneously duplicated in other parts of the network. Imagine how complicated and time consuming these would be in a bigger organization. Many organizations are trying to find a solution to reduce the cost of managing and updating their file directories particularly in businesses dealing with much wider network like the Internet. Active Directory acting like telephones Yellow Pages will get more work done and reduce cost since it enables fast and easy search of information about all the resources linked to the local network and networks beyond. Unlike NT 4.0 Serve's difficult process of setting security policies on a server-to-server basis, Group Policy in Windows Server 2003 provides the simplest way to set policies for desktop and servers and it can be applied at once in many workstations through Active Directory. Organizations or businesses can now benefit from these enhancements through improved customer satisfaction that would eventually reduce help desk calls. Given the means for more efficient access to vital resources, workers, associates, manufacturers and customers can all benefit from enhanced collaboration and more productive interaction (Eurodata, 2004). This is possible by using standardize desktop and server environments that would diminish the possibility of user and software errors and enabling easy detection and troubleshooting of problems by IT personnel. It will also help improve data protections through automated folder redirection, backup, and recovery. Flexible control and easy adjustment of the network environment to the changing business needs and most of all extra security by simulating and validating the impact of any changes first before implementing them to the real environments. Increase productivity by enabling rapid response to any changes required in group configurations thus resulting in effective IT operations of any organization. All these productivity enhancing tools and more are available through the use of Group Policy and Active Directory provided by Windows Server 2003 (Microsoft, 2002). In summary as far as server upgrade is concern, the main business benefits of Windows Server 2003 are file and print productivity, secured access (wired or wireless), storage enhancements, straightforward Active Directory management, and reliable and well protected Internet Web Servers. File and Print productivity is critical as business information and documents are increasingly disseminated in digital or electronic form. Windows Server 2003 supports sophisticated file and print services such as NTFS Journaling File System, Dynamic Volume Management, Improvements with DFS (Distributed File System), Hot Add Memory, Automated System Recovery and Clustered Print Services that delivers considerable savings, better performance, and tough security (Ivens, 2003). Advanced Storage Systems offers better storage management and maintenance. Windows Server 2003 added the Volume Copy (Snapshots) and Disk Services that provides various file and disk management. VSC enables copying of multiple volumes from workstations to the central storage machines. It is more reliable because it is capable of coordinating with storage hardware and business applications resulting in sound back-up recovery and data mining without degradation of performance. Another Windows Server 2003 enhancement of Windows 2000 features is the "Open File backup" which enables backup operation even while files are "open" or in used by users. Another useful Windows Server 2003's enhancement to the NT 4.0 Operating System is the secured wire and wireless connectivity. For a business to remain competitive, a network requires not only to be efficient but at all times secure. Windows Server 2003 offers high-end remote and local network access features. As businesses are turning to virtual enterprises and shifting to offer access to information resources wherever regardless of time by means of whichever device for customers, partners, employees, and suppliers. Internet is very important in realizing these strategies enabling staff to have information instantaneously when required. This is a clear cost-cutting approach through client's self-service, and makes more efficient business management with suppliers and other partners (Microsoft, 2003). Businesses can take advantage of secure built-in public key infrastructure that provides certificate authentication for both wired and wireless networks particularly laptops in "physically unsecured location" (Allen and Danseglio, 2005). It comes with certificates auto-renewal and auto-enrollment features making it quite simple to use smart cards and certificates anyplace in the enterprise. With strong authentication and encryption, an organization can now use the Internet as their WAN providing secured communication and exchange of data across the web. Lastly, features include the convenience of single sign-on that simplifies password management which will eventually reduce help desk requests. The EFS (Encrypting File System in Windows Server 2003) is not configured by default when it's serving as a domain controller (Allen and Danseglio, 2005). The see the Windows Server 2003 business benefits in real life application, Gillen et. al. (2004) conducted a study that shows clear benefits of upgrading. Windows Server 2003 on the basis of a three year TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) is 28.6% cheaper than the old Windows NT Server and 11.5% lower than Windows Server 2000. The comparison for overall cost effectiveness reveals that TCO for 100 supported users for Windows NT Servers is around $137,550 followed by a much lower Windows 2000 Server at $110,983. Amazingly, showing clear advantage in cost, Windows Server 2003's three years TCO would be only around $98,221 which is less expensive than its entire predecessor. The much lower cost in supporting 100 users at a cost of $ 39,000 max is quite enough to convince users to upgrade. To achieve such savings users must invest in new hardware and operating system to get the full advantage of Windows Server 2003. However such upgrade is reasonable considering the 29% drop in staffing cost that would bring long term benefits for the organization. Analyzing a more realistic figure of supported users from medium to big organizations, Gillen et. al (2004) found that the cost is quite large since Windows Server 2003' cost saving to 5,000 users in a large organization may reach up to 2 million dollars (see appendix Figure 1). In productivity and efficiency of IT personnel managing the server and other IT infrastructure, the study shows considerable difference in the ratio of IT staff per server since Windows Server 2003 enables 3:1. The productivity rating shows 10.3% of time spent on server tasks compared to NT and Windows 2000 with 19% and 18% respectively (see Appendix Figure 2). Microsoft Windows Server 2003 is more than what we perceived considering the negative feedback that it has been receiving even before it was released in 2003. The real advantage of upgrading is not entirely cost saving in terms of supported users but strong security and reliability. Security and reliability in the long run will actually bring more savings to the company because less server downtime means more work done and less IT maintenance expenses. Importantly, having a dependable network security will enable businesses to widen their reach and extend their network through the Internet. This will give businesses worldwide collaboration capability and expand their market globally. Another important business benefits of Windows Server 2003 is its high end and reliable data storage management in which an expanding organization's growing data will be manage efficiently. These data that are products of long operation and experience and customer relations is very valuable in data mining that would help them make the right business decision. Appendix Figure 1 (Gillen et. al., 2004) Figure 2 (Gillen et. al, 2004) IT Staffs Performance Metrics References Allen and Danseglio, 2005, "Windows Server 2003 Security Cookbook", Published 2005 O'Reilly, ISBN: 0596007531 Eurodata, 2004, "Upgrading to Windows Server 2003: A guide to decision makers", Eurodate Systems PLC, Version 2, online, Date of Access: 05/10/07, http://www.eurodatasystems.com /MSConsultancy/Infodocs.asp Everett Catherine, 2003, "Big Business can Postpone Windows 2003 Server Upgrade: Evolution not Revolution", The Inquirer, online, Date of Access: 05/10/07, http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspxarticle=9238 Gillen et. al., 2004, "Evaluating the Business Benefits for Windows Users of Deploying Windows Server 2003, White Paper, IDC, Framingham, MA 01701 USA Ivens Kathy, 2003, "Windows Server 2003: The Complete Reference", McGraw-Hill Professional, ISBN: 0072194847 Microsoft White Papers: Microsoft, 2002, "Why Upgrade From Windows NT 4.0 to Windows Server 2003", Microsoft Server 2003 White Paper, Microsoft Corporation, U.S.A. Microsoft, 2003, "Windows Server 2003 Security", Microsoft Server 2003 White Paper, Microsoft Corporation, U.S.A Read More