Microsoft Releases Windows 2000 DataCenter Beta

Starting next week, nearly 300 financial services, health-care, and other large companies will begin testing Microsoft's most powerful next-generation operating system, Windows 2000 DataCenter Server. Microsoft said today it has begun shipping the first beta release of DataCenter Server, designed for data warehousing and enterprise resource planning applications, in conjunction with its largest hardware original equipment manufacturers.

Microsoft says DataCenter Server, which supports four-node clustering, 32-way SMP, network load balancing, and up to 32 Gbytes of memory, will ship about 90 to 120 days after the arrival of the Windows 2000 Professional, Server, and Advanced Server editions, expected by year's end. Microsoft customers have been testing those desktop and server operating systems since earlier this year.

Unlike with the Server and Advanced Server editions, customers won't be able to install DataCenter themselves, Microsoft says. Instead, the platform will arrive preloaded on the original equipment manufacturers' largest Intel-based systems. That should ensure the driver compatibility needed to achieve 99.99% or 99.999% system uptime-crucial for mission-critical apps, say Microsoft officials.