Windows Servers Roles and Features glossary

Procuring the chosen component through the organisation's normal purchasing process, with enough lead time built in that a delayed delivery does not derail the whole project's schedule.

Taught in Network components

Identifying what type of component is needed, a switch, a router, a server-class machine, and the role it will play, before looking at any specific product.

Taught in Network components

A general-purpose operating system for individual, everyday use, not built for continuous multi-user server workloads: it lacks the roles, the licensing for multiple simultaneous network connections, and the reliability features a server edition provides.

Taught in Network components

An operating system built to manage and coordinate resources across a network (Network Operating Systems), the software layer that turns server hardware into something a whole organisation can depend on.

Taught in Network components

Sufficient bandwidth for the expected load, and redundant links or components (dual network cards, dual switches) so a single failure does not take the service down entirely.

Taught in Network components

Sufficient memory for the expected number of concurrent users and the services running, sized to the roles the server hosts rather than a generic figure, since Active Directory, a database and a file server each place different demands on memory.

Taught in Network components

Enough disk capacity, and appropriate redundancy (a RAID array so a single drive failure does not lose data), for the data and services the server will host, sized with headroom for growth rather than exactly to today's need.

Taught in Network components

Choosing a specific model or specification meeting the requirement and budget: port count and speed for a switch, throughput and features for a router, processor, memory and storage for a server.

Taught in Network components

A computer that provides resources or services to other computers on a network, typically running a network operating system on hardware built for continuous operation.

Taught in Network components

Specific functions a server is configured to provide, DNS, DHCP, file services and others (Network Operating Systems, under configuring the operating system), installed and enabled individually according to what the organisation actually needs that server to do.

Taught in Network components

A server is normally given a fixed, unchanging IP address, unlike client devices which typically receive one dynamically from DHCP, so that other systems, DNS records and firewall rules referencing the server never break when a DHCP lease would otherwise renew and change it.

Taught in Network components