Inside Windows® Server 2003

Hardware Recommendations

Windows Server 2003 is remarkably adaptable. The same server code can run on a whitebox Pentium 600 and a multiprocessor, multigigahertz powerhouse. The trick is to pick systems that run Windows Server 2003 reliably.

There is an old story that the inventor of chess was offered any gift he desired by a delighted Chinese emperor who had just learned the game. The inventor asked for a simple gift, to have a single grain of rice placed on the first square of a chessboard, then two grains on the second, four on the third, and so on. Using this progression, the emperor would need to put 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 grains of rice on the 64th square to fulfill the request, not to mention filling all the other squares first. As ...