Hardware Requirements for Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Applies To: Windows Server 2003 Windows Server 2003

R2 Windows Server 2003 SP1 Windows Server 2003 SP2

Windows Server 2003, Standard Edition: System requirements To ensure adequate performance, make sure that computers on which you install or upgrade to Windows Server 2003. Standard Edition meets the following requirements: For an x86-based computer o One or more processors with a recommended minimum speed of 550 megahertz (MHz). The minimum supported speed is 133 MHz A maximum of four processors per computer is supported. Processors from the Intel Pentium/ Celeron family. AMD K6/Athlon/Duron family, or compatible processors are recommended. o 256 megabytes (MB) of RAM (recommended minimum). 128 MB is the minimum supported, and 4 gigabytes (GB) is the maximum supported. For computers more than 4 GB RAM, be sure to confirm hardware compatibility. For an x64-based computer: o One or more processors with a minimum speed of 1.4 gigahertz (GHz). A maximum of four processors per computer is supported. o 512 MB of RAM (minimum). For computers with more than 4 GB of RAM, be sure to confirm hardware compatibility.

A hardware disk partition or volume with enough free space to accommodate the setup process. To ensure that you have flexibility in your later use of the operating system, we recommend that you allow considerably more space than the minimum required of running Setup, which is approximately 1.25 GB to 2 GB of x86-based versions of Windows Server 2003, and 4 GB for x64based versions of Windows Server 2003. The larger amount of space is required if you are running Setup across a network instead of from a CD-ROM, or if you are installing on a FAT32 partition (NTFS is the recommended file system). In addition domain controller update for Windows NT 4.0 could require much more space than other upgrades or installations, because the existing user accounts database can expand by as much as a factor of ten during the upgrade, as Active Directory functionality is added.

Hardware requirements for Windows Small Business Server 2003 The following are the minimum requirements to install Windows Small Business Server 2003 Standard Edition: A Pentium II 300-megahertx (MHz)-or-compatible processor 256 megabytes (MB) of random access memory (RAM) 4 Gigabytes (GB) of available hard disk space A CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive A network adapter from the Microsoft Windows Server Hardware Compatibility List (HCL) A video graphics adapter from the Windows Server 2003 HCL that can support 256 colors and resolution of 800 by 600 dots per inch (dpi) A dedicated class 1 fax modem if you want to use the fax service or the dial-up remote access feature

The following are the recommended hardware requirements to install Windows Business Server 2003 Standard Edition: A Pentium III 550-MHZ-or-compatible processor 348 MB of RAM (maximum RAM supported is 4 GB) Two or more mirrored 4-GB hard disks.

The following are the minimum requirements to install Windows Small Business Server 2003 Premium Edition: A Pentium II 300-MHz-or-compatible processor 256 MB of RAM 5 GB of available hard disk space A CD-ROM or a DVD-ROM drive A network adapter from the Windows Server 2003 HCL A video graphics adapter that can support 256 colors and a resolution of 800 by 600 dpi from the Windows Server 2003 HCL A dedicated Class 1 fax modem if you want to use the fax service, the dial-up remote access feature, or the Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server dial-up service.

The following are the recommended hardware requirements to install Windows Small server 2003 Premium Edition: A Pentium III 550-MHZ-or-compatible processor 512 MB of RAM (maximum RAM supported is 4 GB) Two or more mirrored 5-GB disks

Windows Small Business Server 2003 cannot use more than two physical processors. However, if there are two physical processors installed, and each processor supports the hyper-threading, the two

physical processors are recognized as multiple logical processors. Or, if each processor is multi-cored, the two physical processors are recognized as multiple logical processors. For example, if there are two quad-core processors, eight logical processors are recognized. Or, if there are two processors that support hyper-threading, four logical processors are recognized. In these scenarios, Windows Small Business Server takes advantage of all the logical processors. Consider the number of physical processors and not the number of cores. These Hardware requirements are low-end installation values for each category, and they are not the optimum values for Windows Small Business Server to operate at peak efficiency. These values typically correspond to the low end of the approved range for the number of qualified users in SBS installation (instead of to a number that is closer to the 75-user limit). Depending on your specific business requirements, on the number of users, on the number of SBS programs that are used, and on the type and number of additional third-party programs that are installed, the hardware resources that you must have to efficiency operate SBS may be higher than these values. When you use third-party programs, add their hardware requirements to these values to make decisions about your hardware resource requirements. Information about the third-party programs is important when you use a combination of programs on a server that includes database management programs is important when you use a combination of programs on a server that includes database management programs (either the Microsoft SQL Server 2000 installation that include separate databasemanagement programs). You may have to do additional performance tuning or upgrade your hardware resources to obtain optimum results under these circumstances.

Hardware Requirements for VPN Server Applies to: Windows Server 2003 Windows Server 2003 R2 Windows Server 2003 with SP1 Windows Server 2003 with SP2

Use the following guidelines when determining network hardware requirements for you VPN Design: For interfaces on the public network, use network adapters capable of IPsec hardware offload. Assuming that you have a 10/100 Ethernet infrastructure, set all devices 10 100Mbps Full Duplex. Connect interfaces to the private network directly to high-capacity switch also connects the data servers and routers that remote access clients will access frequently.

CPU requirements Use the following guidelines when determining COU requirements for your VPN design:

Processing inbound and outbound packets require CPU cycles. By increasing the available processing power, you can increase throughput. Doubling the speed of a single processor is more effective than doubling the number of processors. In the case of multiprocessor platforms, binding one CPU to each network adapter can increase the efficiency of interrupt handling, freeing cycles and shrinking the performance gap between the use of a large number of less powerful COUs and a few faster, more expensive CPUs

RAM Requirements Use the following guidelines when determining the RAM needed for VPN servers: Each active connection consumes a small block of nonpageable memory (Approximately 40 KB). If you do not need to handle more than 1000 concurrent calls from remote access users, 512 MB of RAM is adequate. If you require the capacity to handle more than 1000 concurrent calls, for every 1000 concurrent calls provide an extra 128 MB of RAM over recommended Pam capacity for the server, plus a base of 128 MB more for remote access and related services.

For example for a dedicated remote access server that will support as many as 2000 simultaneous VPN calls, if the recommended RAM capacity for windows server 2003 is 256 MB, provide 768 MB of RAM: 256 MB + (128 MB * 2)+(128 MB * 2) = 768 MB of RAM.

Performing Capacity Planning The two greatest potential performance constraints in your remote access server solution are the number of simultaneous connections and the overall data through put. The number of simultaneous connections that a VPN server can support is determined by the available non paged pool as well as other factors, such as the use of data compression. With compression, each connection uses more no paged pool memory and requires more processing. Turning off compression can improve performance. The Processing Power that is available to VPN server determines the servers data through put capacity. Tunneling protocols also have an impact on data through put. PPTP connections require less processing power than L2TP/IPsec connections do; however, L2TP/IPsec connections are the most secure. You can mitigate impact of L2TP/IPsec on processing power by using IPsec hardware offload.