Microsoft Talk

We suppose it happens in families too, where one twin seems charmed from the start while the other lives under a shadow. Certainly that’s the case with Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista, the one almost universally heralded and the other widely snubbed. Still, isn’t it odd? How do two operating systems, born together and sharing so much DNA, arrive to such different fates?

According to InfoWorld Test Center’s Tom Yager, the reason is simple: Microsoft got it right when it listened to the customer and got it wrong when it didn’t. Windows Server 2008 is everything that IT buyers asked for, while Vista is the product of an older Microsoft design paradigm: “You’ll know what you want when we show it to you.”

Alas, business customers who had been happy with the trim and trusty Windows XP largely rejected the fatter, slower, bothersome Vista. So far, it doesn’t look as if Windows 7 will offer much different.

So while Vista has lived under a cloud and taken a backseat to Windows XP among IT shops (and to Windows 7 in Redmond), Windows Server 2008 has been widely praised as a mature and polished Linux killer and a no-brainer upgrade from Windows Server 2003. J. Peter Bruzzese, InfoWorld’s Enterprise Windows blogger, minced no words: “You must move to Windows Server 2008.”

The advances beyond Windows Server 2003 seem too numerous to count. At the top of Bruzzese’s list are BitLocker drive encryption, an improved firewall (that automatically configures for server roles), Address Space Load Randomization (another security enhancement), and a rewritten networking stack — all of which Vista shares, by the way. The new networking stack makes a case for hitching Windows Vista to Windows Server 2008’s wagon: Network I/O tests of Windows Server 2008 show a significant speed advantage for Vista over XP clients, especially under heavy loads.

Windows Server 2008’s ability to offload TCP/IP processing to supporting network interface cards is another way to reap big performance gains. Other advances improve availability and lighten the server admin’s load. Multipath I/O lets you configure a redundant path to storage to guard against hardware failure. Self-healing NTFS repairs file system corruption in the background, without interrupting service. Restartable Active Directory Domain Services allow other services (DNS, DHCP, WINS) to continue while AD is restored. Read Only Domain Controllers, which cache only local users’ credentials, bolster security at branch offices.

Offers Additional Opportunities for IT Pros and Hardware Vendors
Q&A: Bill Laing, corporate vice president of Windows Server and Solutions, says coming improvements in the Windows Server operating system will offer greater opportunities for customers and partners in areas such as virtualization and scalability.

In part:

What sort of reception has Windows Server 2008 been getting in the market?

Laing: There’s been a lot of excitement about this product and its momentum is still growing. For example, since its launch in February, we have seen more than one million downloads of the RTM versions of Windows Server 2008, and more than 500,000 customers and 90,000 partners trained on Windows Server 2008.

But the real measure of its success is the bottom-line svalue our customers have been experiencing. For example, earlier this year researchers at consulting agency Capgemini looked at several companies and institutions that were using Windows Server 2008. They found that Windows Server 2008 streamlined their IT operations and improved management, security and reliability. IT costs were reduced by up to $124,000 per year through staff efficiencies and reduced downtime.

How does Windows Server 2008 R2 differ from the previous version? What are the most notable new features?

Laing: We think it’s important to give customers a predictable timetable to plan for the next versions of our server technologies. We are working on an update release for Windows Server, named Windows Server 2008 R2, which is in line with the release cadence Bob Muglia outlined several years ago. As part of this update, we are integrating the latest service and feature packs with some new technology investments focused around four categories: virtualization, management, scalability and the Web.

From a virtualization standpoint, we’re building on our state-of-the-art virtualization technology with a newer version of our Hyper-V hypervisor technology as well as some new features that customers have been asking us for, such as Live Migration. This feature, which is included with Windows Server 2008 R2 at no additional charge, lets you move a running workload from one machine to another in milliseconds, with no loss of performance from the user’s point of view.

On the management front, Windows Server 2008 R2 will be a foundation for datacenter automation. We are making multiple improvements that give customers the reins to truly manage their servers the way they desire, whether that is locally or remotely, via a graphical user interface (GUI) or from the command line via Windows PowerShell. We are also making improvements to help customers reduce and better manage their datacenter power consumption. Windows Server 2008 R2 can automatically turn processor cores on and off based on the workload of the system, or reduce the power consumption by adjusting processor speed.

Another area of innovation in Windows Server 2008 R2 is the ability to more easily administer and support Web applications on a streamlined Web platform. We’ve integrated Internet Information Services 7.0 (IIS) manager extensions to make it simpler to administer local and remote Web servers, and added support for ASP.NET and PHP to the Server Core.

And finally, we continue to invest in scalability. In Windows Server 2008 R2, we have built in support for up to 256 logical processors, which will allow our customers to more fully exploit today’s powerful CPUs, deploying only the features they choose and scaling those solutions to meet their organization’s needs.

• Featured Resources
  • Changes in Functionality from Windows Server 2003 with SP1 to Windows Server 2008
  • Command Reference
• Active Directory Certificate Services
  • Evaluation
  • Getting Started
• Active Directory Domain Services
  • Evaluation
  • Getting Started
• Active Directory Federation Services
  • Evaluation
• Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
  • Evaluation
  • Getting Started
• Active Directory Rights Management Services
  • Evaluation
  • Getting Started
• Application Server
  • Evaluation
  • Planning and Architecture
  • Operations
  • More…
• Availability and Scalability
• Backup and Recovery
  • Evaluation
• Device Management and Installation
  • Device Management and Installation Operations Guide
  • Troubleshooting Device Management and Installation
• DNS Server
  • Evaluation
• File Services
  • Evaluation
  • Planning and Architecture

• Group Policy
  • Group Policy ADMX Syntax Reference Guide
• Network Policy and Access Services
  • Evaluation
• Networking
  • Troubleshooting Network and Sharing Center
  • Network and Sharing Center Operations Guide
  • Windows Firewall with Advanced Security
• Performance and Reliability
• Print Server
  • Evaluation
• Server Manager
• Security and Protection
  • Threats and Vulnerabilities Mitigation
  • Secure Configuration Assessment and Management
  • Identity and Access Control
• Terminal Services
  • Evaluation
• Troubleshooting
  • Active Directory Federation Services
  • Active Directory Rights Management Services
  • DHCP Infrastructure
  • More…
• Web Server
  • Operations
• Windows Deployment Services
  • Evaluation

Source

Continuing on Windows Server 2008, here are the latest downloads for Windows Server 2008.

1. Windows Server® 2008 Beta 3 Standard
   Windows Server® 2008 Beta 3 helps IT professionals to increase the flexibility of their server infrastructure while offering developers a more robust web and applications platform for building connected applications and services.
2. Windows Server® 2008 Beta 3 for Itanium-based Systems
   Windows Server® 2008 Beta 3 helps IT professionals to increase the flexibility of their server infrastructure while offering developers a more robust web and applications platform for building connected applications and services.
3. Windows Server® 2008 Beta 3 Datacenter
   Windows Server® 2008 Beta 3 helps IT professionals to increase the flexibility of their server infrastructure while offering developers a more robust web and applications platform for building connected applications and services.
4. Windows Server® 2008 Beta 3 Enterprise.
   Windows Server® 2008 Beta 3 helps IT professionals to increase the flexibility of their server infrastructure while offering developers a more robust web and applications platform for building connected applications and services.
5. Windows® Web Server 2008 Beta 3.
   Windows Server® 2008 Beta 3 helps IT professionals to increase the flexibility of their server infrastructure while offering developers a more robust web and applications platform for building connected applications and services.