Hello Ruslan,

I think the anser may depend on how many clients your system will have, and
how much resource it will consume. And, will you also run other
applications on the same server, for example, a local database to support
your system? In my thoughts, a important application server should be as
powerful as we can provide, especially, when we cannot predict if there
will be additional clients and applications later.

For software, I think Windows Server 2003 and latest service pack will be
OK for the system. If you also need some debug work o the server, you may
also consider install VS.NET on it. And maybe some anti-virus or firewall
applications.

And regarding the question about cluster:

How To Set Up a COM+ Application on a Cluster Server
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;271844

You may also post the cluster related questions in :

and you may have more exprienced people there on windows clustering issue.

Sincerely,

Luke Zhang

Microsoft Online Community Support
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Hello Ruslan,

The hardware requirements are primary depended on the application and
the depended software. The recommended win2k3 hardware requirements
should suffice if you do not plan to use SQL Server or any additional
services.

In order to run COM+ applications, the only thing you need is Win2K3
with the Application Server role enabled. (This installs COM+ as some
other services).

For the cluster/failover part, you should consider going with Microsoft
Application Center that provides capabilities of Component based
clustering (I think this is what you want). I believe that you could
develop something custom but the functionality offered by AC worths the
additional cost.

Regards,
Tasos

[Microsoft Application Center]
http://www.microsoft.com/applicationcenter