News Analysis

Windows Server 2008

Microsoft’s latest server OS adds some interesting and worthwhile features says Prashant L Rao

The latest iteration of Microsoft’s server OS family that began with NT has debuted to generally good reviews across the board. Features such as Server Manager, Server Core and PowerShell all make Server 2003 look like a good bet though organizations looking for out of the box virtualization capabilities would perhaps be better off waiting for a few months till Hyper V, Microsoft’s virtualization platform, makes its debut—currently it is in beta.

For now, Microsoft’s pumped up about its latest offering. S Somasegar, Senior Vice President – Developer Division, Microsoft comments, “This is our biggest release since NT4.”

The company says that it received feedback from its customers asking for holistic management tools that in Somasegar’s words offer a “360 degree view from the data center to the desktop with one set of tools for the entire environment.” This environment it should be understood encompasses both Microsoft and non-Microsoft (Linux) OSs.

Simpler, modular IIS

One of the prominent components of Windows Server has always been the Web server, IIS, now in its 7th release. Here, the company is talking about simplified configuration and management including delegating administration, shared configurations and a modularized architecture. “The surface area has been reduced,” said Somasegar. This makes the Web server that much more secure. The software is also more efficient than its predecessor, claims the company citing the example of Rackspace that deployed IIS7 for hosting and enjoyed 16 to 25% savings on hardware on a per cluster basis.

Seven of the top ten hosts in India ready to go with IIS7. Pallavi Kathuria, Director – Server Business, Microsoft India named Net4India and QualiSpace as two of these.

Superior manageability

Coming to the server OS itself, Kathuria talked about the enhanced manageability thanks to components such as the Performance and Reliability Monitor and PowerShell (a UNIX script like, .NET based, scripting language for administration).

64-bit virtualization

Talking about virtualization, Microsoft’s only supporting it through Hyper V on 64-bit versions of Server OS 2008. When asked about this, Kathuria said, “We see a move towards 64-bit.” Somasegar concurred saying, “In the server environment, 64-bit is the name of the game.” He went on to add that, “We are the beginning of tapping virtualization; only 5% of servers are virtualized.”

Microsoft had earlier announced that the next version of Exchange would be 64-bit. It makes sense that you would need more horsepower in terms of memory addressability and raw CPU power for running virtual machines.

Paring down to the core

On the security front, the company has continued in its efforts to reduce the surface area that the OS presents to the outside world. Previously everything was in the box; any workload you can imagine. As administrators prefer to take control from the get go, the company’s come out with server core, a pared down but not bare bones version of the OS that has eight different roles—file, print, Web, virtualization, ADDS, Storage, DHCP and DNS.

“If you want to add functionality you can turn it on,” said Somasegar.

Kathuria commented that, “Server core cuts down patching time by up to 60%.”

Scripting provides UNIX guys an easy way to configure things. Powershell (based on .NET) does the same for Windows.

With every iteration of Windows Server the number of reboots required after applying system updates has reduced and with Server 2008 there’s a subset of patches that you don’t need to reboot for.

It is now possible to hot swap CPUs and memory.

In the case of Windows Server 2003, the Windows System Resource Manager (WSRM) was introduced in the R2 update. This time around WSRM is part of the OS. Apparently there is a good bit of interest in this component. Kathuria said, “There is a good level of interest and traction in WSRM. In SQL Server 2008, Resource Governer lets you adjust and provision CPU utilization.”

With regard to client support, Server 2008 apparently works fine with XP although it has some features that are best with Vista. The hardware requirements are pretty much the same unless you are talking about virtualization.

Somasegar added, “A slew of server products will be released between now and the end of the year. Hyper V in beta. It will be launched within the next few months. Other launches will be of High Performance Server (HPC), SBS and Essential Business Server for medium businesses.

Microsoft believes in using its own products before it releases them to the rest of us. “We have been running microsoft.com on IIS7/Windows Server 2008 for eight months now. My last three paychecks were generated by SAP on SQL Server 2008,” said Somasegar.

The company already has 16 customers in India including L&T ECC, Kotak Bank, Allahabad Bank, TVS Motors, Maharastra Industrial Development Corporation, CGA, Wipro, Infosys, Genpact. The company has 22 partner solutions and applications for banking, manufacturing, engineering etc.

Somasegar stressed that, “A number of critical features developed in Hyderabad including WSRM, Services for UNIX, SQL Server Management Studio, SQL Server Compact Edition, JavaScript in Visual Studio and Presentation Virtualization Support in Terminal Services.”

Overall, Server 2008 is a good successor to Server 2003. For a company like Microsoft whose products have long been known for their GUIs, a product like Server Core that strips down the OS to a single function, command line server OS is nothing short of revolutionary. Along with other features like Server Manager and PowerShell, this is perhaps the best version of Windows Server yet.

prashant.rao@expressindia.com