S 4.409 Purchasing of Windows Server 2008

Initiation responsibility: Head of IT, IT Security Officer

Implementation responsibility: Purchasing Department

Regarding hardware and software purchasing, Windows Server 2008 requires exact planning of the intended use. Support of 32-bit processor architecture has been discontinued with the introduction of Windows Server 2008 R2. Besides the required planning for the hardware to be used, the applications to be installed must also be checked for 64-bit compatibility.

Furthermore, there are seven editions of Windows Server 2008 R2. The three editions that are presumably used most often are Standard, Enterprise and Datacenter; up to and including Windows Server 2008, they have been differentiated into versions with and without Hyper-V. Under Windows Server 2008 R2 and higher, Microsoft does not make such differentiation. The installation of Hyper-V is made by correspondingly selecting the role; this is not available in the editions Itanium, Web or Foundation, for example.

Before purchasing the corresponding software licence of the server, the desired intended use of the system must be defined. This is the only possibility to avoid unnecessary costs when purchasing the Windows Server 2008 Edition.

This also applies to the number of the required CPUs and the size of the RAM. Here there are also significant differences between the individual editions: For example, instead of using the 64 CPUs of the Datacenter Edition, the Standard Edition can only use 4 CPUs.

Editions of Windows Server 2008 R2 Summary
Windows Server 2008 R2 Foundation Starter server for small companies
Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard Standard platform for most needs
Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise - Offers failover cluster nodes - Hot-Add Memory
Windows Server 2008 R2 Datacenter Additional to the functions of the Enterprise Edition:- Hot-Add Processors- Hot-Replace Memory- Hot-Replace Processors
Windows Web Server 2008 R2 This edition is only used as a platform of the IIS
Windows Server 2008 R2 for Itanium-based systems Operating system, exclusively for Itanium-based CPU
Windows HPC Server 2008 R2 Operating system for high-performance computing

Besides the restrictions regarding the usable hardware, the corresponding editions show significant differences with the possible use of roles. For example, besides installation of the IIS, the Web Server edition also requires a DNS server; further roles are not available. For selecting the required edition, Microsoft offer detailed overviews such as tables of the editions with their supported server roles. These documents should be taken into account before purchasing the corresponding edition.

Further details on installable server roles are included in S 4.418 Planning the use of Windows Server 2008.

When purchasing within scope of a volume licence contract, the infrastructure required for activation of the systems should also be taken into account (see S 4.336 Activation of Windows systems from a volume licence contract in Vista or Server 2008 and higher versions).

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