Thomas Nicholson

I have been reading the marketing stuff online and the junk mail in my inbox about Windows Server 2008.  So I did a search into what Microsoft thinks are the reasons why customers should upgrade from 2000 and 2003.  Now I know why we all use Windows Server, so I’m not going to argue that point.  The point I do want to argue is that it’s own “Top 11 Reasons to Upgrade to Windows Server 2008″ is pretty lame.

1. “Server Consolidation and Resource Optimization—Hyper-V” Hyper-V is MS implementation of visualization.  Linux has had Xen for a number of years and in the last few has really taken off.  If your not into the Open Source virtualization you can always go with VMware.
2. Flexible Application Access for Remote Users—TS RemoteApp is another “feature” Windows is implementing decades after Linux.  Even if you exclude the ssh and the like we have still had the ability to xhost a GUI for some time.  Even to Windows desktops with applications like Hummingbird and ReflectionX.
3. Modular, Minimal Installation—Server Core - OMG I agree this is a cool Windows feature and a major one to consider when you think of all the servers in data centers with a GUI installed that don’t need them or the overhead.  I can say that most of the Linux and UNIX systems I have managed did have a GUI installed because most administrators like to export a GUI for some tasks rather then a command-line.  But the GUI install was always a choice.
4. Delivering Rich Web Content and Applications—IIS 7.0 - I think its fair to say that Web 2.0 is 99% based on a LAMP stack and not .NET with Ajax.  I am always happy to see IIS come with a new release because its the only time you see a significant effort made to fix the security issues with IIS.
5. Improved Network Performance and Control—New TCP/IP Stack - When anyone MS or not says “new” and then plugs-in an established technology I get a little nervous.  Not sure the specifics here but I know when it comes to TCP/IP and Internet related protocols MS is the last one to adopt “new” standards.
6. Preventing Unhealthy Devices from Connecting to the Network—NAP - Again this is more a layer 3 problem but like Windows, Linux has also implemented the same NAP standards and has some really interesting stuff I will discuss in another post.
7. Supporting Business Continuity for Demanding Workloads—High Availability Features - Honestly I know that Windows isn’t responsible for crashing when most crashes are due to crappy code by crappy programmers but when I get developer notes from companies like IBM that “require” nightly or weekly reboots to maintain HA standards you know you have a problem.  I work with over a thousand applications and the only time a non-Windows host folds down is for scheduled work not because a developer “requires” a nightly or weekly reboot.  I think native HA support will be good for MS.
8. Enabling Secure Collaboration—Active Directory Federated Rights Management - I have been lucky with not having to deal with AD outside of the classroom or the initial migration from NT to 2000 I did back in 2001.  So I will leave this to the pro’s but when I did the migration it was sad to see features missing in AD that existed in Novell Directory Services (NDS) and LDAP for years that AD didn’t initially have.  I know AD is a standard and its the only way to implement a network but “secure collaboration?” not sure if I would have pointed out what was missing since 2000.
9. Connecting Heterogeneous Environments - I’ll be nice and skip this one.  Anyone remember “UNIX Services for Windows”?
10. Enabling Top-Shelf Service and Support for Remote Sites - This sounds like a gimmick not a feature to me.
11. Easing Administration, Management, and Automation—Server Manager and PowerShell - I have read very little about PowerShell but what I have read I like.  One of my biggest complaints is that when trying to do simple automation on 2000 and 2003 its like pulling teeth.  What nodes have WMI which are hardened and restrict VBScript.  A number of things make me stay away from Windows automation vs Linux automation.  I really am happy to see PowerShell and I hope that it will be a common deployment on all Windows servers in the future.

I still need to give Server 2008 a run through.   I am really excited about the core install.  But I’m not sold on if they have made enough changes for me or my clients to migrate from 2000 or 2003 to Server 2008.

If you or your company have given Server 2008 a trial I would like to hear your opinions on upgrading.

Top 11 Resons source [Microsoft]

Related articles

• Windows Server 2008 Terminal Server vs Citrix XenApp [via Zemanta]
• Windows Server 2008 Technical Overviews [via Zemanta]
• MCTkring Event: Windows Server 2008 Technical Overview [via Zemanta]
• It’s not Vista: Windows Server 2008 gets the nod from IT [via Zemanta]
• Microsoft opens Server 2008 licensing a smidge [via Zemanta]