Server operating system releases rarely garner much
excitement outside of IT circles. They
are the necessary evil coordinating all or our messaging, file handling and
online services vital for networked world.
Even if you don't spend your days in a cube for a living and prefer to
store your files in the cloud there is a server somewhere making it all
possible.
As such they tend to not be very sexy. In the case of Microsoft, most server
operating systems appear on the surface at least to be a stripped down purpose
built version of their desktop counterparts.
At their core they are with some important differences.. The primary differentiation is that they've
been optimized for better storage, memory handling and security.
Windows Server 8
Beta was released to the public on March 1st, 2012, one day after the
Windows 8 consumer preview. Hardware requirements
are as follows:
Processor - Minimum: 1.4 GHz
64bit processor
Memory - Minimum: 512 MB RAM
Available Disk Space - Minimum:
32 GB
Optical Drive DVD-ROM drive
Display and Peripherals - Super
VGA (800 x 600) or higher-resolution monitor
Keyboard
Microsoft Mouse or other compatible pointing
device
Upgrade paths from Server 2008 R2 are supported with other
versions of Server 2008 allowed for the
Beta release. Microsoft makes available
a 64Bit ISO and a VHD (Virtual Hard Disk) file as the installation media options. The VHD option assumes at least Server 2003
and Microsoft Virtual server 2005 (Hyper-V).
VMWARE test installations would likely be better served by mounting the
ISO as the install medium for a new VM.
As with all Beta installs, Server 8 should only be deployed
in a test environment as there is no installation roll-back functionality.
There are two installation options, Server core which offers
little more than a powershell window and a GUI version which adds a system
manager applet similar (if not a bit gaudy) to the Server 2008 system manager. In my use the Server Manager is functional
but counterintuitive due to the haphazard
organization of the applets. As
an aside it's not very attractive either, looking much like one of those bad
Powerpoint slides we've all had to suffer in a sales meeting.
Microsoft has stated that they want to move away from GUI
administration tools on the actual server and instead manage server resources remotely. That would explain the prominence of
powershell and the GUI as a now secondary option for installation.
Microsoft has also touted is Hyper-V
version 3.0 as a real challenger to the virtualization space currently
dominated by VMWARE. The new
virtualization framework touts better support for more physical CPUs, larger
storage volumes and larger RAM sizes.
Improvements in SAN performance are also claimed utilizing ODX
(offloaded data transfer) which basically sends commands to the SAN directly
instead of attempting to read and write data as though the storage were
local. Hyper V virtual machines are also
said to support up to four virtual Fiber channel Host Bus Adapters.
Improvements to Hyper-V may be of most interest to IT
departments with complex Hyper-V deployments who will appreciate support built
into the management GUI. Hyper -V also
supports a new feature called Hyper-V
Replica which can be thought of as a kind of VM failover mechanism utilizing
two Hyper-V VM's that are constantly kept updated.
Improvements in Microsoft's Web Server, IIS and Remote
Desktop services (Terminal Services) are also included with this latest release
but what may be most striking has little to do with the dry technical
stuff. Server 8, like it's desktop
cousin, has inherited the Metro Tile interface.
You'd be hard pressed to tell the difference between
Microsoft Server desktops at a glance from Windows 2000 on. Aside from tweaks to the start button they
generally don't include the flash of their desktop counterparts and as such are
fairly plain.
Not so with Server 8.
The Metro Tile interface has replaced the Start button/menu and includes
tiles to manage the basic functions of the server. Additional administrative tiles are available
by enabling the option giving you access to most of the familiar tools any
Windows admin would recognize.
At first blush this seems like a pointless addition and more
than one IT peer has balked at it especially in light of Microsoft's desire to
move away from graphical interfaces.
Take a moment to consider the minimalist strategy Microsoft is now
promoting, however and it makes sense.
The desktop in Windows 8 is little more than a convenience
primarily existing for backward compatibility for applications that require
it. Desktop based applications can create a tile in Metro
but will launch on the desktop instead of directly from Metro.
With the Metro tiles, senior administrators now have more
control over the level of administration they allow to junior staff. With virtually all aspects of the operating
system controllable via Group policy it's not inconceivable to lock junior IT
staff into only those functions they need to have with no opportunity to
circumvent their limited access.
Microsoft has not yet set a release date for Server 8 but
it's likely that it will be within a few months of the desktop OS release. Does that mean that Server 8 will replace
current installations overnight? That's
unlikely considering that many companies are only now moving to Server 2008 R2
as legacy applications catch up to embrace 64 bit platforms. In my own experience, there's generally a 2
year lag before a new server operating system starts to gain significant market
share over its predecessors. The most
likely driver will be the improved virtualization for companies looking to move
from VMWARE and improved resource and access management functionality.
Time will tell if Server 8 is embraced as many IT
organizations chose to ignore the last Microsoft server release,
For many IT organizations Server 2008 offered no real advantage over
Server 2003 other than better 64 bit hardware support. Many organizations also choose to skip
versions which may translate into better adoption of the new server OS for IT
organizations still using Server 2003.
