Editing Windows Server 2003 (section)

===Datacenter===
Windows Server 2003 Datacenter is designed<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/evaluation/overview/datacenter.mspx |title=Microsoft documentation for Windows Server 2003, Datacenter Edition |publisher=Microsoft.com |access-date=November 22, 2011}}</ref> for infrastructures demanding high security and reliability. Windows Server 2003 is available for IA-32, Itanium, and x64 processors. It supports a maximum of 32 physical processors on IA-32 platform or 64 physical processors on x64 and IA-64 hardware. IA-32 variants of this edition support up to 64&nbsp;GB of RAM.<ref name="memlimit2" /> With Service Pack 2 installed, the x64 variants support up to 1&nbsp;TB while the IA-64 variants support up to 2&nbsp;TB of RAM.<ref name="memlimit2">{{cite web|url=http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa366778(v=vs.85).aspx |title=Memory Limits for Windows Releases |publisher=Msdn.microsoft.com |access-date=November 22, 2011}}</ref> Windows Server 2003 Datacenter also allows limiting processor and memory usage on a per-application basis.

This edition has better support for [[storage area network]]s (SANs): It features a service which uses Windows [[winsock|sockets]] to emulate TCP/IP communication over native SAN service providers, thereby allowing a SAN to be accessed over any [[TCP/IP]] channel. With this, any application that can communicate over TCP/IP can use a SAN, without any modification to the application.{{Citation needed|date=January 2023}}

The Datacenter edition, like the Enterprise edition, supports 8-node [[computer cluster|clustering]].{{Citation needed|date=January 2023}} Clustering increases availability and fault tolerance of server installations by distributing and replicating the service among many servers. This edition supports clustering with each cluster having its own dedicated storage, or with all cluster nodes connected to a common SAN.