Microsoft Windows Server 2008
What you need to know when considering Server 2008
Microsoft have released Windows Server 2008, and it's getting great reviews. Many parts of the server software
have been redesigned or tightened up, and it's been very stable.
Note that the Small Business Server version has just been released as well, and includes
Exchange Server in the Standard Edition; the Premium Edition includes Exchange as well as SQL Server.
Most Significant New Features
The features that have garnered the most attention are:
Windows 2008 Server - Best New Features
- Improved security, group policy management and rights management
- Available in a 64-bit version to take advantage of the speed improvements in Intel Xeon or AMD Opteron 64-bit processors
- Available with Microsoft's Hyper-V to make virtualization faster, easier and more robust
- Improvements in remote management to improve turnaround for maintenance and other server management services
- Improved Terminal Services / Remote Desktop allows remote users to more easily be restricted in what they can & cannot do.
As well, remote printing for Terminal Services is improved
- Improved patch management, so that fewer Windows Updates require server reboots. This enables you to keep your server
more up to date, with fewer disruptions due to required reboots of the server
- Improved data reliability by virtue of better Shadow Copy and partition resizing on-the-fly if required
- Improved and updated Internet Information Services (IIS), which is the web server portion of Windows Server. This can
be used to drive a public website or an internal-use-only (Intranet) site
Many of these features won't mean much to a lot of our clients, in the sense that most small businesses don't really care which
version of IIS they're running, or what Active Directory tools are available to the network administrators (most often, us and our
network specialists).
Suffice it to say that there are lots of great improvements in this generation of Windows Server, and if you're look at a
new server in the coming months and want to add a lot of stability and flexibility while reducing network admin costs,
you should consider Windows Server 2008 or Small Business Server 2008.