Microsoft brought out former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw late last month to start the launch of Windows Server 2008. “I’m not here to write code,” began Brokaw. Instead he spoke of the radical transformation of society by today’s technology. At the height of that technology is Microsoft Windows Server 2008, what Microsoft calls its biggest IT launch in history. It delivers advancements in speed, security and management, but some agree its virtualization and network-access control features come up short.
New server administrative role schemes boost security, the Server Manager program improves manageability, Internet Information Server (IIS) Web management functionality is revamped, Active Directory is easier to control, and Windows Terminal Services has been redesigned. It’s also significantly faster than Windows Server 2003, especially when client machines are running Vista. But Microsoft’s server virtualization tool Hyper-V (available in beta with Server 2008) will not be final until later this year. Compatibility between non- and older Windows versions is also missing. Microsoft also launched SQL Server 2008 at the event, but the product won’t actually be released until the second half of 2008.