Windows Server 2008 R2: Enhanced Capability Editions

Enhanced Capabilities

Windows Server 2008 R2 provides four enhanced capability editions that allow businesses to be successful. Deciding which option is best for your business is not just a comparison of features, but rather a decision that involves specific needs in solving problems and meeting IT needs. These four editions are as follows:

1. Windows Server 2008 R2 Datacenter provides a platform for developing critical applications for business and large-scale virtualization on both small and large servers. The Datacenter also significantly improves availability with clustering and hardware capabilities, while simultaneously reducing costs by combining applications with unlimited virtualization licensing rights. 

2. Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise provides new levels of system uptime, the latest security, and the scalability to support the growth of critical applications. It also helps to reduce costs by realizing the benefits of virtualization. The Enterprise is especially useful for servers running applications like networking, messaging, inventory, databases, and customer service.

3. Windows Server 2008 R2 for Itanium-Based Systems provides a strong foundation for demanding business-critical applications, along with scale solutions to meet growing IT needs with support for up to 256 logical processor cores and 2 terabytes of RAM. This edition delivers solutions with eight-node clusters and dynamic partitioning capabilities, such as add/replace processor and RAM, while taking advantage of virtualization to unify servers and reduce costs with unlimited virtual instance rights. Windows Server 2008 R2 for Itanium-Based Systems pulls together the reliability, availability, and scalability features of the Itanium processor and server hardware, which makes it a solid foundation for large databases, business applications, and custom applications.

4. Windows HPC Server 2008 provides all of Windows Server 2008 R2's benefits and cost savings to the HPC environment. The HPC edition is built upon the Windows Server 2008 R2 x64-bit technology and can effectively scale to thousands of processing cores with smooth functionality to improve the productivity, and simplify your HPC environment. Windows HPC Server 2008 provides an integrated end-user experience that scales from the desktop application to the clusters.

Referenced from: Microsoft.com