Windows 2008 Hardware Recommendations

[mikesmith20055002]

I've never dealt with Windows 2008 Server (only 2003/2000)in anything but a test environment. I'm just wondering what people think would be good specs (processor and memory) for the following two servers in a real world scenerio?

Server 1 - Active Directory, DHCP, Wins - 100 client users

Server 2 - Exchange 2007 on Windows 2008 (all in one...ie. OWA with Exchange), no more than 40 email users.

Could anyone offer some realistic specs? As Microsoft's specs are more PR than real world.
Thanks,

 

[mrdenny]

For just running AD, DHCP, DNS, etc pretty much what Windows 2008 needs basically what 2003 needs. As long as you've got a Gig of RAM you should be fine.

Denny
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[pagy]

I actually think that MS recommended specs for 2008 are more realistic than they have announced for previous versions. Note I said recommended specs, not minimum specs;

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/system-requirements.aspx

For AD, DHCP and DNS something like a Xeon Dual core with 4 Gigs of RAM will be more than sufficient for 100 users.

For Exchange I would say Xeon dual/quad core with something between 4-8 gigs of RAM would be fine based on the information you've given.

I'm by no means an Exchange expert so I'm sure someone will correct me if the info I have given you is incorrect in some way. Remember that Exchange 2007 is 64 bit only, so your W2K8 install needs to be the 64 bit version.

Paul
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[itsp1965]

From what you described for the role of server 1 you can run Windows 2008 as a server core implementation which has minimal cpu/memory footprint.