• Failover clustering that supports up to 16 nodes
  
  
• Geographically dispersed clustering that spans network subnets
  
  
• Seamless, real-time operating system memory back-up
  
  
• Dynamic hardware partitioning that supports Hot/Add Replace Memory and Hot Add/Replace Processor
  
  Large-Scale Virtualization
  Server virtualization technology lets you optimize your resources and realize significant infrastructure and management cost savings. Windows Server 2008 Datacenter provides an ideal platform for enterprise-scale virtualization:
  
  
• Each Windows Server 2008 Datacenter license assigned to a physical host server allows a business to run up to four additional instances of Windows Server in guest virtual machines on that server.
  
  
• Quick migration couples the failover clustering of Windows Server 2008 Datacenter with Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V to move virtualized server workloads from one host server to another with minimal disruption. This maintains the availability of virtualized servers in the event of both planned and unplanned downtime.
  
  Increased Scalability
  Windows Server 2008 Datacenter easily scales to adapt to the increased needs of data warehousing and transaction processing.
  
  
• Support for up to 64 processors (32 processors on 32-bit systems)
  
• Support for up to 2 terabytes of RAM (64 GB on 32-bit systems)
  
• Support for an unlimited number of virtual private network (VPN) connections
  
• Authentication and authorization for an unlimited number of network connection requests
  
  Security and Identity Management
  The new authentication architecture Windows Server 2008 Datacenter delivers advanced identity and access management features that help maintain employee productivity while enhancing security of IT operations:
  
  
• Federated access to internal resources for external users and partners through Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS)
• Better management of certificates and smart card enrollment with Advanced Certificate Management Services (AD CS)
  
  Windows Server 2008 with SQL Server and Exchange Server
  
  
• Customers use Microsoft SQL Server for database applications where scalability and high availability are important.
  
  
• E-mail is considered a mission-critical application as any downtime affects productivity. Implementing high-availability solutions with Microsoft Exchange Server is important. Scalability is also important; it enables you to provide more mailboxes or to increase the mailbox size with a lesser server footprint.

Specifications

• Minimum: 1 GHz (x86 processor) or 1.4 GHz (x64 processor)
• Recommended: 2 GHz or faster
  Note: An Intel Itanium 2 processor is required for Windows Server 2008 for Itanium-Based Systems
  
  Memory
  
• Minimum: 512 MB RAM
• Recommended: 2 GB RAM or greater
• Optimal: 2 GB RAM (Full installation) or 1 GB RAM (Server Core installation) or more
• Maximum (32-bit systems): 4 GB (Standard) or 64 GB (Enterprise and Datacenter)
• Maximum (64-bit systems): 32 GB (Standard) or 2 TB (Enterprise, Datacenter, and Itanium-Based Systems)
  
  Available Disk Space
  
• Minimum: 10 GB
• Recommended: 40 GB or greater
  Note: Computers with more than 16 GB of RAM will require more disk space for paging, hibernation, and dump files
  
  Drive
  
• DVD-ROM drive
  
  Display
  
• Super VGA (800 × 600) or higher resolution monitor
  
  Other
  
• Keyboard and Microsoft Mouse or compatible pointing device