The next 2 years are going to bring a series of major and significant updates
to all of Microsoft's Windows Server products, as well as an exciting series
of new product releases aimed at ensuring that everyone's favorite software
giant hits every conceivable portion of the server software market. However,
even the most cynical Microsoft customers should be impressed with the sheer
volume of server technologies the company is planning to introduce. So many
technologies, in fact, that this article can serve only as a cursory overview,
and one that I'll try to expand on in the coming months. In the meantime, here's
what Microsoft has up its sleeve.
Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2
With Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 (SP2), due out in the first quarter
of 2007, there's much less deployment pain to fear than there was with SP1,
which included major new features. Instead, SP2 is a more typical service pack
that bundles all of the previously released hot fixes and patches (including
SP1) into a single, easy-to-deploy update. It also includes a number of new
features, and although some are quite interesting, none are major.
The most important thing you need to know about SP2 is that there'll only be
one version of this service pack. Whether you're running any 32-bit or 64-bit
version of Windows 2003, Windows Server 2003 Enterprise x64 Edition, Windows
Server 2003 Release 2 (R2), or even Windows XP x64 Edition, a single SP2 version
will update your entire system. You won't have a confusing slew of slightly
different SP2 releases to worry about.
So what's new? SP2 includes Microsoft Management Console (MMC) 3.0, which was
introduced in R2 but is now available to all Windows 2003 users. It also includes
the Scalable Networking Pack and Windows Deployment Services (WDS) so that Windows
2003 users can deploy Vista clients. WDS can be used in three modes: Legacy
(in which it works like a Microsoft Remote Installation Services—RIS—server),
Mixed (in which you can use both RIS and WDS tools and technologies), and Native
(WDS only).
Windows 2003 SP2 will initially be made available as an optional download,
via Microsoft Update, for its first three months of availability. After that,
it will be deployed via Automatic Updates as a critical update, although businesses
will be able to block SP2 for one year. However, after that year elapses, SP2
will become a mandatory update.
Windows Home Server
A few years back, I first wrote about Windows Home Server (currently code-named
"Q" but previously code-named "Quattro"), but this highly confidential project
has been developed under a fog of secrecy that Microsoft has rarely been able
to sustain. At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January 2007, however,
the company finally announced its plans for a home server. In addition, while
this product won't have any impact on the majority of businesses, it looks like
a fascinating option for home-based and very small businesses.
Windows Home Server is unlike any other Windows
Server product. It won't support Active Directory (AD)
domains or any other kind of directory, although Microsoft did briefly investigate that possibility. Instead, Home
Server will provide a few key pieces of functionality, the
most intriguing of which is its storage technology. Windows
Home Server will provide automatic backup for all of the
PCs in a user's home, and by using a new patent-pending
Single Instance Store (SIS) technology, it will achieve dramatic compression results. 17GB to 19GB of data, I'm told,
can be compressed down to 300MB of backups. Microsoft
will employ an image-based, full-PC backup with incremental backups thereafter, as well as document and data
backups.
Storage on the server is handled in an obvious yet
innovative way. Instead of using drive letters, Windows
Home Server will aggregate all of your storage into a single
storage pool, no matter how many drives you add. You
can hot-add internal and external storage, whether Serial
ATA (SATA) drives or USB devices, at least on the servers
that will support this product (standalone Windows Home
Server software will also be made available, so you will be
able to install it on your own machines). What's interesting about this approach to storage is that users can specify
certain data files—such as digital photos—as "important."
Windows Home Server will ensure that it backs up at least
two copies of "important" files, one each on two different
physical drives, increasing the chance that one copy will
survive in the event of a hardware failure.
Windows Home Server will also provide remote access
over the Internet to any connected PC on the network running XP SP2 and later, including Vista, and to the server
itself, providing the type of functionality one now associates
with solutions like GoToMyPC and LogMeIn.
PC builders such as HP are coming out with innovative Windows Home Server hardware,
although you can always build your own. Although pricing wasn't available at
the time of this writing, Microsoft understands that this product must sell
to the consumer market, so expect the company to be aggressive in this area.