Windows Server 2008 is the second major release of the Windows Server family operating system for server computers. Developed by Microsoft, released to manufacturing on February 4, 2008, and achieved general availability on February 27, 2008. It is the successor of Windows Server 2003, which was released nearly five years earlier.
Video Windows Server 2008
Histori
Originally known as Windows Server Codename "Longhorn" , Microsoft chairman Bill Gates announced his official title (Windows Server 2008) during his keynote speech at WinHEC May 16, 2007.
Beta 1 was released on July 27, 2005, Beta 2 was announced and released on May 23, 2006 in WinHEC 2006 and Beta 3 was released publicly on April 25, 2007. Release Candidate 0 was released to the public on September 24, 2007 and Release Candidate 1 was released to the public on December 5, 2007. Windows Server 2008 was released to manufacturing on February 4, 2008 and officially launched on February 27, 2008.
Maps Windows Server 2008
Features
Windows Server 2008 is built from the same codebase as Windows Vista; therefore, it shares many of the same architectures and functions. Because of the generic codebase, it automatically comes with most of the new technical, security, management, and administrative features for Windows Vista such as rewritable network heaps (native IPv6, native wireless, speed and security enhancements); improved installation, deployment and image-based recovery; improved diagnostics, monitoring, recording of events, and reporting tools; new security features such as BitLocker and ASLR (randomness of place address layout); improve Windows Firewall with secure default configuration;.NET Framework 3.0 technology, especially Windows Communication Foundation, Microsoft Message Queuing and Windows Workflow Foundation; and core kernel, memory and file system repair. Processors and memory devices are modeled as Plug and Play devices, to enable hot-plugging of these devices. This allows system resources to be partitioned dynamically using Dynamic Partition Hardware ; each partition has its own memory, processor and I/O bridge master device independent of other partitions.
Server Core
Windows Server 2008 includes a variation of installation called Server Core . Server Core is a significant-scale installation where no Windows Explorer shell is installed. All configuration and maintenance is done completely through the command line interface window, or by connecting to the machine remotely using Microsoft Management Console. However, Notepad and some control panel applets, such as Regional Settings, are available.
Server Core does not include.NET Framework, Internet Explorer, Windows PowerShell or many other features that are not related to core server features. The Core Servers machine can be configured for several basic roles: Domain/Active Directory Domain Services, ADLDS (ADAM) controllers, DNS servers, DHCP servers, file servers, print servers, Windows Media Server, IIS 7 web servers and Hyper-V virtual servers. Server Core can also be used to create clusters with high availability using failover clustering or network load balancing.
Andrew Mason, a program manager on the Windows Server team, notes that the primary motivation for producing variants of Server Core Windows Server 2008 is to reduce the surface of operating system attacks, and that about 70% of security vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows from the previous five years will not affect Server Core.
Active Directory Role
Active Directory roles are expanded with identity, certificate, and rights management services. Active Directory, to Windows Server 2003, allows network administrators to centrally manage computers, to set policies for a group of users, and to deploy new applications to multiple computers centrally. The role of Active Directory is renamed to Active Directory Domain Service (ADDS). A number of other additional services are being introduced, including the Active Directory Federation Service (ADFS), Active Directory Directory Service (AD LDS), (Active Directory Application Mode, or ADAM), Active Directory Certificate Services (ADCS), and Active Service Rights Management Directory (ADRMS). Identity and certificate services allow administrators to manage user accounts and digital certificates that allow them to access certain services and systems. The Federation management service allows a company to share its credentials with trusted partners and customers, enabling the consultant to use his company's username and password to log into the client network. The Identity Integrity Feature Package is included as Active Directory Directory Services . Each of these services represents the server role.
Failover Clustering
Windows Server 2008 offers high availability for services and applications through Failover Clustering. Most server features and roles can continue to run with little or no time to stop.
In Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2, the qualifying way cluster changed significantly with the introduction of the cluster validation wizard. The cluster validation wizard is a feature that is integrated into failover groupings in Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2. With the cluster validation wizard, administrators can run a series of focused tests on a collection of servers that are intended to be used as nodes in a cluster. This cluster validation process tests directly under the hardware and software, and individually, to obtain an accurate assessment of how well the failover grouping can be supported in the given configuration.
This feature is available only in Enterprise edition and Windows Server Datacenter.
NTFS self-healing
In Windows versions prior to Windows Vista, if the operating system detects corruption in the NTFS volume file system, it marks the "dirty" volume; to fix errors on the volume, it should be done offline. With NTFS self-healing, an NTFS worker thread appears in the background that performs a local fix of a corrupted data structure, with only the damaged files/folders remaining unavailable without locking the entire volume and requiring the server to be removed. The operating system now displays S.M.A.R.T. detection techniques to help determine when the hard disk might fail.
Hyper-V
Hyper-V is a hypervisor-based virtualization software, forming the core part of Microsoft's virtualization strategy. This server virtualization on the operating system kernel layer. This can be thought of as a single physical server partition into multiple small computing partitions. Hyper-V includes the ability to act as a virtual host hypervisor Xen enables guest operating system that enabled Xen to run virtualization. The Hyper-V beta version was shipped with a specific x86-64 edition of Windows Server 2008, prior to the release of Hyper-V's final version of Microsoft on June 26, 2008 as a free download. Also, Hyper-V's standalone version exists; this version only supports x86-64 architecture. While the IA-32 edition of Windows Server 2008 can not run or install Hyper-V, they can run the MMC snap-in to manage Hyper-V.
Windows System Resource Manager
Windows System Resource Manager (WSRM) is integrated into Windows Server 2008. It provides resource management and can be used to control the amount of process resources that users can use based on business priorities. The Process Match Criteria , defined by the name, type or process owner, imposes restrictions on the use of resources by processes that match the criteria. CPU time, usable bandwidth, number of processors that can be run, and allocated to a process can be restricted. Restrictions can be set to apply only on certain dates as well.
Server Manager
Server Manager is a new role-based management tool for Windows Server 2008. It is a combination of your Manage Your Server and SCW Configuration Wizard from Windows Server 2003. Server Manager is enhanced < i> My server configuration is launched by default on Windows Server 2003 machines. However, instead of serving as a starting point for configuring new roles, Server Manager collects all the operations the user wants to perform on the server, such as, set up remote deployment methods, add more server roles, etc., and provide consolidation, display like a portal about the status of each role.
Other features
Compared to its predecessor, most editions of Windows Server 2008 are available in x86-64 and IA-32 versions. This edition comes in two DVDs: One to install the IA-32 variant and the other for x64. Windows Server 2008 for Itanium-based System supports IA-64 processors. Microsoft has optimized the IA-64 version for high-end workload scenarios such as database servers and Line of Business (LOB) applications. As such, it is not optimized for use as a file server or media server. Microsoft has announced that Windows Server 2008 is the last 32-bit Windows operating system. The Windows Server 2008 edition includes:
- Windows Server 2008 Standard (IA-32 and x86-64)
- Windows Server 2008 Enterprise (IA-32 and x86-64)
- Windows Server 2008 Datacenter (IA-32 and x86-64)
- Windows HPC Server 2008 (Codenamed "Socrates") (replacing Windows Compute Cluster Server)
- Windows Web Server 2008 (IA-32 and x86-64)
- Windows Storage Server 2008 (Codenamed "Magni") (IA-32 and x86-64)
- Windows Small Business Server 2008 (Codenamed "Cougar") (x86-64) for small businesses
- Windows Essential Business Server 2008 (Codenamed "Centro") (x86-64) for medium-sized businesses (Discontinued)
- Windows Server 2008 for Itanium-Based Systems
- Windows Server 2008 Foundation (Codenamed "Five") (x86-64) is only for OEM
The Microsoft Imagine program, known as DreamSpark at the time, was used to provide verified students with a 32-bit Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition variant, but the version was deleted. However, they still provide R2 releases.
The Server Core feature is available in Web, Standard, Company and Datacenter editions.
Service Package
Microsoft occasionally releases service packs for its Windows operating system to fix bugs and also add new features.
Because Windows Server 2008 is based on the Windows Vista Service Pack 1 kernel, the RTM release is considered Service Pack 1; therefore, the first service pack is called Service Pack 2. Announced on October 24, 2008, this service pack contains the same changes and fixes as Windows Vista Service Pack 2, as well as the final release of Hyper-V 1.0, and a 10% reduction in power usage.
The first SP2 beta version was sent out in October 2008, public beta arriving in December 2008, and building RC-escrow was given to testers in January 2009. Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 share a single binary service pack, reflecting the fact that their codebase joined the Server 2008 release. On May 26, 2009, Service Pack 2 was ready to be released. Now available in Windows Update.
Windows Server 2008 R2
The second release, Windows Server 2008 R2, was released on October 22, 2009. The availability of retail began September 14, 2009. Windows Server 2008 R2 reached the RTM milestone on July 22, 2009. Like Windows 7, it was built on Windows NT 6.1. New features include new virtualization features, new Active Directory features, IIS 7.5, and support for 256 logical processors. Support for 32-bit processors (IA-32) was removed. On July 22, 2009, Microsoft officially announced that it has released Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 for manufacture. Windows Server 2008 R2 is generally available for download from MSDN and Technet on August 19 and for retail purchases starting October 22, 2009.
System requirements
System requirements for Windows Server 2008 are as follows:
Scalability
Windows Server 2008 supports the following maximum hardware specifications:
See also
- Microsoft Servers
- Microsoft Windows version comparisons
- Microsoft Windows History
- Comparison of operating system
- List of operating systems
Note
References
Further reading
External links
- Windows Server Team Performance Blog
Source of the article : Wikipedia