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Q1: Simply describe Application Center 2000?
Application Center 2000 is Microsoft's deployment and management tool for high-availability Web applications built on the MS Windows® 2000 operating system. Application Center 2000 makes managing groups of servers as simple as managing a single computer.
Q2: List 3 areas that Application Center 2000 addresses?
1) SIMPLIFIED APPLICATION MANAGEMENT:
Application Center 2000 empowers developers and Web site administrators to deploy applications quickly and easily while minimizing the in-depth application knowledge requirements. This in turn reduces the complexity and cost of operating a scalable, highly-available application.
2) SOFTWARE SCALING:
Software scaling increases the capacity of an application by adding servers. While hardware scaling requires expensive, specialized servers, software scaling can be achieved using standard off-the-shelf servers. In addition, with software scaling, the relationship of cost to added capacity is close to linear.
Application Center 2000 simplifies software scaling using an idea called clustering. Although many different technologies have described themselves as clustering, the fundamental idea is a simple one: a group of servers used as a single, unified resource. By bringing the servers together into a cluster, many servers can be managed as easily as one.
3) MISSION-CRITICAL AVAILABILITY:
Application Center 2000 is designed so that any server may be brought down without affecting the availability of the application. There is no single point of failure. This means applications can have the necessary mission-critical availability using off-the-shelf hardware.
Q3: Tell me 3 things about Simplified Application Management?
1) Reduces application management complexity:
Today's applications consist of many bits and pieces. Using Application Center 2000, administrators can quickly construct logical groupings including the contents, components, and configuration of applications. These groupings can be easily managed throughout the cluster, reducing application complexity.
2) Manages many servers as one:
When changes are made to a server, Application Center can automatically apply those changes to the other servers in the cluster, allowing Web site administrators to focus their attention on more valuable work.
3) Streamlines application deployment:
Application Center simplifies the task of migrating applications through the development cycle (from development to testing to production). It helps ensure consistency between the developed application, the tested application, and the production application. By automating deployment of applications from one server to another, Application Center speeds up the transfer time, eliminates manual errors, and improves the quality of releases.
Q4: Tell me 3 things about Software Scaling?
1) ACCELERATES CLUSTER DEPLOYMENT:
Traditionally, software scaling has carried a 'high barrier to entry,' including a high cost in complexity and resources in getting applications to run on multiple servers as a unified resource. Application Center eliminates the barriers that make the move to a software-scaled architecture difficult.
2) SCALES WITH YOUR BUSINESS:
Application Center 2000 makes scaling easy enough that applications can achieve on-demand scalability. Using Application Center, applications can handle increases and decreases in their capacity requirements by easily adding or removing servers.
3) REQUIRES NO NEW APPLICATION PROGRAMMING INTERFACES (APIs):
Application Center 2000 offers the benefits of software scaling to existing applications, without requiring modifications or rewrites.
Q5: Tell me 3 things about Mission Critical Availability?
1) INSURES AVAILABILITY:
Application Center 2000 allows your Website to withstand software and hardware failures at any point in the system without disrupting application service.
2) ACTIVELY MONITORS PERFORMANCE and HEALTH:
Application Center 2000 provides tools that monitor the cluster and its servers. It also includes powerful features that enable viewing of performance and event-log data for one server or the entire cluster. Administrators can monitor applications remotely using a browser-based console.
3) AUTOMATES EVENT RESPONSES:
Application Center 2000 can monitor server and application health and can take action in response to particular events and conditions. With automated responses, operational costs will be reduced through the elimination of manual tasks. Automated responses also can provide higher application availability.
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