Microsoft Windows Server 8 Preview: Review

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Good server management features

At first glance, Windows Server 8 has a substantially different Server Manager than previous versions of the operating system. The redesigned Server Manager fully embraces a multimachine management approach that is far different from the traditional one-machine-at-a-time view that is available today.

The management tools are intended to run from a Windows client system. Microsoft officials went out of their way to state that a Linux system with the WS-Management (a DMTF, SOAP-based protocol for system management) stack could use the Server Manager tools to manage Windows Server 8 systems.

I was able to easily add Windows Server 8 systems along with existing Windows Server 2008 R2 and 2003 systems to Server Manager. I was able to group systems, see alerts based on individual systems or by server role and act on error conditions. One substantial change in Server Manager – aside from the adoption of the stark Metro interface – is that the familiar Task Pane has been replaced with a right mouse click. This is a much more intuitive way to work, and IT managers should expect this will ease adoption of the new Server Manager by experienced data centre operations staff.

As I have held for many years, effective management of the virtual infrastructure will distinguish successful implementations from those that fail. It’s interesting to note that Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) already supports managing both Hyper-V and vSphere environments. Further, Microsoft has substantial operational experience from running Hotmail, Bing and its MSDN properties. It seems clear that lessons from the System Center team and Microsoft operations have had a positive influence on the management design of Windows Server 8. Organisations should now begin to see how existing third-party management tools interoperate, or are made redundant, by the System Manager changes.

A greater network role

Windows Server 8 substantially expands the role the operating system can play in organisations, especially those with a modest number of IT staff. I was able to use Windows Server 8 DHCP and DNS roles to provide redundancy in the case of DHCP, and eased operations, in the case of DNS. While I don’t see a similar move to include Cisco networking, as VMware did with the Cisco Nexus 1000v, there are improvements to the virtual switch infrastructure in Windows Server 8.

I was able to use new virtual machine network isolation and bandwidth policy features in Windows Server 8 to enforce “you-get-what-you-pay-for” multitenancy networking in Windows Server 8. I was able to use a virtual network port access control list (ACL) to control network access. There also are private VLAN capabilities and minimum/maximum bandwidth throttling capabilities that I used to provide basic controls on how much network capacity my virtual machines were able to use.

While this is new in Windows Server 8, these capabilities, as I saw them, do not set any new benchmark for virtual network switch functionality. Even so, there are substantial changes that enhance the basic functionality of the virtual network switch in Windows Sever 8. This is an area of the product that IT managers should mark for substantial investigation. In particular, capturing and filtering extensions along with an API that enables the virtual switch to make network traffic available to third parties for traffic inspection. There will be a logo program to certify third-party products that use the virtual switch API.

I was able to use Windows Server 8 to create NIC teams on my server systems. NIC teaming is already available in competitive products. NIC teams can be created using cards from different vendors. IT managers should consider that NIC teams of nearly any size can be created. This physical networking enhancement removes a major roadblock to placing performance-sensitive workloads on Windows Server systems.

Watch for further review coverage

Subsequent reviews will look in greater detail at the substantial storage changes that are included in Windows Server 8. For now, I can say the new Storage Spaces should make it significantly easier for IT managers to administer virtual disks, both when provisioning and for improved performance. Windows Server 8 will also include NFS 4.1 support file access for Unix clients.