Data Return Corporation, a fast-growing Web-hosting company, has decided to migrate its business to the Microsoft® Windows® 2000 Server family of products. Migration from Windows NT® 4.0 to Windows 2000 on over 750 servers is in progress now, and Data Return is already seeing an increase of 30 to 40 percent in connections per server. This is big news for a company that must be able to add 75 servers per month in order to meet customer demand. Data Return also expects significant savings due to simplified management and improved hardware scalability.
Company Profile
Data Return delivers high-availability Web- and application-hosting services using Microsoft® solutions on more than 750 Compaq ProLiant servers. Founded in 1997, the Dallas-based company serves customers all over the world, ranging from the Web 1000 to the Fortune 1000.
Since 1997, Data Return has been providing advanced Web-, intranet-, and application-hosting services to more than 1,000 companies, including Microsoft Corp., Motorola, Inc., The Boeing Company, Compaq Computer Corporation, and Siemens AG, using the Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 operating system. The company's testing has shown that, using Windows 2000, it will be able to provide more advanced application- and Web-hosting services with features such as multiprocessor support for up to 32 processors. Additionally, Data Return has already experienced an increase of 30 to 40 percent in user connections now that it uses Windows 2000, and it expects that Windows 2000 Clustering Services will allow it to continue to offer service plans with significantly increased reliability. At the same time, Data Return believes that it can reduce its operating costs because the Windows 2000 operating system is easier to deploy and manage. The process by which Data Return has deployed more than 200 new Compaq ProLiant servers in a quarter will be significantly faster, as much as 20 minutes per machine, with Windows 2000.
The built-in Terminal Service for administration mode, along with other features of Windows 2000, streamlines Data Return’s management methods. In addition, the Windows 2000 platform will provide existing Data Return customers with significantly more scalability without requiring the company to install additional servers. As a result, Data Return has already begun offering hosting services on Windows 2000 and will begin to migrate all its servers to the Microsoft Windows 2000 Server family as soon as the software is officially released.
"Ultimately," says chief technology officer Jason A. Lochhead, "it's about performance and cost. And Windows 2000 gives us great performance at a lower cost. We are so confident in Windows 2000 that it is now our default platform for new servers. All new servers will be Windows 2000-based."
Greater Scalability, Availability, and Performance Mean Greater Savings
Data Return's current implementation of Windows NT Server 4.0, which includes more than 750 Compaq ProLiant servers, has grown by more than 75 servers per month. Data Return deploys these new servers through an unattended installation process. "After installing Windows NT Server 4.0 on a new machine," Lochhead says, "we would then have to install remote management services. With Windows 2000, we just flag Terminal Service for administration mode at install time. And with the number of servers that we put up per month, saving 20 minutes per server during the build process translates into a lot of saved labor." Simply put, Data Return can roll out a greater number of Windows 2000-based servers, and this means a savings of time, and therefore, money.
Because of growing customer demand and the increasing sophistication of its customers' deployments, Data Return is continually expanding the number of production servers it manages. Lochhead comments, "A single Windows 2000-based server can support over one hundred thousand user sessions per day and thousands of simultaneous connections. This is between 30 and 40 percent better than our Windows NT 4.0-based servers running on the same hardware." Data Return does not foresee the need to replace customers' server hardware for the upgrade to Windows 2000. However, with the improved multiprocessor support of Windows 2000, Data Return is seeing a greater demand for multiple-CPU systems; customers are upgrading existing machines (rather than completely replacing them) to save money.
Symmetric Multiple-Processor Support
Windows 2000 has expanded symmetric multiprocessing support over that of Windows NT 4.0 with its built-in Web server, Microsoft Internet Information Service 5.0 (IIS 5). Because it can use up to 32 processors, Windows 2000 offers a significantly more scalable Internet server platform. Lochhead explains, "One of the most significant cost savings that we will see with Windows 2000 will come from its greater hardware scalability. With the architecture changes that were made to IIS 5, we can support much larger applications on fewer multiprocessor servers." The savings come because Windows 2000 supports greater vertical scalability—that is, bigger hardware. The multiple machines in the hosting configuration are more powerful with Windows 2000.
Data Return is also adding higher-end Microsoft SQL ServerTM hosting solutions with the powerful multiprocessor support of Windows 2000 Advanced Server. "Compaq eight-way machines began shipping recently," Lochhead says, "and we already have customers running Windows 2000 Advanced Server on these servers with Microsoft SQL Server." These multiprocessor Compaq ProLiant servers running Windows 2000 Advanced Server are capable of handling highly transactional SQL databases.
High Performance with the Improved Availability of Clustering
Data Return is also pleased with the increased scalability it is experiencing on individual servers running Windows 2000. Its testing scenario placed servers running Windows 2000 head to head with Windows NT 4.0-based servers in a clustered environment on identical hardware using Layer 4 switching hardware. The results were definitive: Servers based on Windows 2000 handled 30 to 40 percent more connections than the Windows NT 4.0-based servers did. "Windows 2000 with IIS 5 handles the connections so much faster than Windows NT 4.0 with IIS 4 that the load-balancing hardware feeds the Windows 2000-based servers more connections," says Lochhead.
Data Return's experience in providing customers with clustered hosting solutions allows it to support both high-availability and performance-centric applications. With the more robust Windows 2000 Clustering Services, customers can now use large multiprocessor servers when clustering application services include Microsoft SQL Server. With Windows 2000 clustering, Data Return offers its customers service plans that provide significantly improved reliability. Customers can host their most critical applications on Windows 2000 and expect that those applications will be available when needed.
An Enhanced Feature Set Opens Up Opportunities for Growing Services
Data Return's business focuses on hosting services for public and private applications for mid-size to large companies that have a strategic commitment to the Internet. Data Return works with the developers who create these applications to provide them with expertise in the deployment and ongoing management of the applications.
Data Return's advanced Web-hosting business has always been high-end. Lochhead explains, "We have always focused on hosting applications that incorporate Microsoft Active Server Pages, Microsoft SQL Server, and Microsoft Site Server 3.0 Commerce Edition. And for the heavily transactional Web sites that use these technologies, Windows 2000 Server and IIS 5 make the ideal operating platform." Windows 2000 and IIS 5 have the power to host these sites because they were built on Microsoft Windows DNA technologies. By using the Windows DNA model for application design, a model perfectly suited to transactional applications, the developer can write an application that is easily scalable from one to any number of servers. This is precisely the environment that Data Return offers its customers.
While Data Return has focused primarily on advanced Web hosting, it is expanding its business offerings to application hosting with Windows 2000 for Customer Relationship Management (CRM), electronic procurement, and Microsoft Exchange Server 2000.
Remote Management and Administration Save Time and Money
With the integration of Terminal Service into Windows 2000, Data Return can now manage servers remotely without the need for additional software that requires separate installation, licensing, and management. Says Lochhead, "We save about $50 per server by using Terminal Service." As an added bonus, Terminal Service is significantly faster than the third-party solution that Data Return is currently using.
Lochhead describes Data Return's position this way: "In our environment, there are data centers all over the world, but all of our system administrators are here in Dallas, Texas. It is all about remote management for us." Terminal Service for administration mode gives the administrators exactly the functionality they need to keep track of the machines they manage, no matter what the physical location is of those machines. Windows 2000 Terminal Service also provides an out-of-the-box solution for the company's customers, the majority of whom have access to their dedicated machines. Terminal Service is another feature of Windows 2000 that streamlines Data Return's deployment operation, saving the company time and saving its customers money.
Moving Forward
In its initial implementation of Windows 2000, Data Return is looking forward to the simplified management tools and server placement provided by the Windows 2000 Active DirectoryTM service. These features will greatly streamline network management for Data Return. The company anticipates that implementations of the Active Directory service will increase the scope of services it can provide and simplify the implementation of services it already provides. Active Directory will immediately aid customers with membership-based Web sites where up to millions of users can log on to a Web site on a daily basis, and Data Return will certainly integrate Active Directory with its offering of Microsoft Exchange services.
In the meantime, Data Return is already achieving a more scalable, available, and manageable platform with Windows 2000. The benefits of the integrated Terminal Service are clear. It can manage any and all servers from anywhere, and has 30 to 40 percent more user connections per server, decreased deployment time, and increased service offerings. All this means that Data Return will be able to meet customers' demands more reliably and at a lower cost. Lochhead concludes, "All of the integrated services, as well as improved performance, reliability, and availability, have proven to us, and our customers, that the Windows 2000 Server family is the best choice for the future of our business."
Software and Services
Windows 2000 Advanced Server with Internet Information Service 5.0 and Terminal Service
SQL ServerTM 7.0
Site Server 3.0 Commerce Edition
Exchange Server 2000
