Microsoft Releases Windows Server 2012 249
Barence writes "Microsoft has released Windows Server 2012, letting businesses test it for 90 days on the Azure cloud platform for free. There are two versions of the main edition of Windows Server 2012: one with virtualization support and one without. The former, the Data Center version, costs $4,809, while the Standard edition will cost $882. There's also an Essentials version, which replaces Small Business Server, for $501 per server, and Windows Server 2012 Foundation, which will only be available pre-installed on hardware."
Ars has a detailed look at the new edition.
WHAT!? (Score:2, Informative)
$4k to enable visualization support (that the code already is there for?)
Yet MS wonders why they have such a comparatively tiny market share of the server market...
Re:WHAT!? (Score:5, Informative)
$4k to enable visualization support (that the code already is there for?)
Yet MS wonders why they have such a comparatively tiny market share of the server market...
It also allows for unlimtied virtualised Windows 2k12 installs under that one license...
Incorrect abstract. (Score:5, Informative)
Functionally, Standard and Datacenter are the same. Even things like clustering, which used to be the sole preserve of the higher-end Windows Server SKUs, are found in Standard. The only difference is the number of Windows Server virtual machines supported per license.
So again: The only difference between the Standard and Datacenter is the licensing. Same software, two licenses.
Re:Bender. (Score:4, Informative)
There is no increased CPU count. Both Standard and Datacenter support 2 CPUs per license.
With Datacenter you get unlimited (Windows) VMs, so if you run more than 10 Windows VMs on a (2 CPU) box, it is cheaper.
For less dense virtualization, use Standard licenses, as each give right to two VMs.
Re:WHAT!? (Score:4, Informative)
Actually that would be 4 licenses (each one covers two sockets, the old license scheme was hard to figure out for the most common use case of a 2 socket box).
Re:WHAT!? (Score:5, Informative)
Each copy of Datacenter includes UNLIMITED copies of Windows for $4800.
Or buy Essentials with NO virtualization for $500 (you can still run it on a virtual machine, but only ONE copy)
Re:What exactly does it do? (Score:5, Informative)
Run the 99% of commercial apps that are coded agaist the win32 api in a supported manner? Have vm management tools that don't suck horribly? I could go on but I'd just be further feeding the troll.
Re:Incorrect abstract. (Score:5, Informative)
Or more specifically, Standard = 2 copies of Windows per proc pair, Datacenter = Unlimited copies of Windows per physical server
Not quite. The Datacenter license is also per processor pair. If you have 4 processors in the box, you need two licenses.
Re:Finally tried real pay-for-it microsoft support (Score:5, Informative)
(posting anonymous for obvious reasons)
It only took you three days. We were dealing with a screwy Microsoft Lync mobility issues whereby the iOS client just wouldn't work (but every other client under the sun worked). The only odd-ball thing about our setup was one of the four servers (at least four are required for any Lync deployment) was a Linux box acting as a reverse proxy. We opened up a ticket with Microsoft on April 30, 2012. The time spent with them since is a waste of time:
* We repeatedly requested the actual HTTP request/response data from the iphone's perspective, annotated with notes on how it differs from what the iphone expected. Every time we requested it, they provided us with the client's general iphone debug log (which was useless to us), even though we explained that it doesn't fulfill our request.
* We asked for details on what is expected of the Lync reverse proxy. They provided us with instructions on how to set up TMG. We replied that the provided information did not fulfill the request. Their response was a shrug and another link to the same instructions.
* We asked if there was anything specific to the iOS client that required ISA or TMG. They demurred on it, refused to research it, refused to acknowledge the bug for *four* months. I'm not exaggerating. It was August 31 when we inferred from the continued back and forth that the only way Microsoft can hope to grasp the problem is to make the reverse proxy an ISA server.
From this, I learned that Microsoft support really isn't much better than doing it yourself. They have no inside tricks, they have no way of getting a guru to weigh in on anything, and they hope that by sending you the same wrong information over and over they won't have to acknowledge faults in the product.
For my part, calling Microsoft support isn't an option any longer. It is a waste of time and money that could be better spent solving the problem myself.
Re:WHAT!? (Score:5, Informative)
Expressed as a percentage of the cost of virtualization environment, both numbers are almost meaningless after you factor in tiny things like storage.
Critical Apps on Linux. (Score:5, Informative)
That'll be why the world runs on Windows servers and no-one would think of putting any critical service on Linux.
The Oracle world (big business, government) is definitely running on Linux instead of Windows. With the decline of Unix running on "big iron", with the exception of IBM's RS/6000 and AIX being the last holdout, everyone is moving their enterprise, mission critical apps to Linux. Especially with Oracle themselves releasing a tweaked version of RHEL, Linux is an "officially supported" platform that even satisfies the corporate PHBs and bean counters.
I make a pretty good living porting Oracle enterprise databases and apps to Linux. Just a couple weeks ago, we ported a Windows-based Oracle WebLogic middleware server from Windows to OEL Linux running on the very same piece of hardware, and got a tenfold boost in performance. With results like that, business loves Linux now.
Granted, only server-side things on Linux are welcome in the business world. The desktop will sadly *never* be adopted in any significant numbers in any enterprise. All because Windows and Active Directory rule that market segment.
Re:Shocking prices. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:What exactly does it do? (Score:5, Informative)
So what exactly does it do that similarly equipped Linux machines/vps' can't do that justify the cost?
* New resilient file system ReFS (think BtrFS when completed)
* Storage Spaces (think ZFS storage pools)
* SMB 3.0 - higher performance network transfer, transparent failover, SMB scaleout (multiple servers serve same shares and aggregates bandwidth), SMB Direct (efficient remote direct memory access), SMB Multichannel, Volume Shadow Service (VSS) for SMB file shares, SMB encryption, SMB Directory Leasing (negotiates and updates local caches of metadata over slow networks)
* Dynamic access control (claims and policy based access control). Think SELinux, grsecurity. Access control based on what application the user is running (sandboxing), from what type of device the user is accessing the resource, on other user attributes than security groups (e.g. who is the manager, what department does the user belong to etc), access control based on attributes of the file (e.g. classification, select words of a Word document)
* RemoteFX improvements, e.g. virtualized GPUs (can use local or remote shared GPUs during RDP sessions), remote low-latency multitouch.
* Direct Access over IPv4. Think hassle-free VPN.
* Hyper-V 3: ethernet cable live migration (neat trick) lets you migrate VMs off one server onto another server over the network without the servers sharing anything. Many Hyper-V manageability improvements. Crazy scalability, e.g. a 63-node Hyper-V cluster runs 4000 concurrent VMs simultaneously. Hyper-V replica.
* Server manager: Yes, a Metro (oops - "Modern") style management app for multiple servers. Integrates with response files and powershell workflow scripts to manage multiple computers (servers/workstations) at once - e.g. install new software, perform configure actions.
* PowerShell 3 with new features such as resilient remote connections (you can detach from a remote session and pick it up later/from another device), workflow scripts which can perform actions with suspend/restart/repeat semantics. No, not just "suspend process" - but actually persisting the state of a script to be continued later, e.g. after a computer restart (or from another machine).
* Thousands of new PowerShell cmdlets (many/most automatically derived from WMI providers) to control virtually anything on local or remote computers.
* Block sized data de-duplication
These are features I could find by googling. I'm sure there are more. Obviously not all of them will appeal to Linux enthusiasts. But still...
Re:WHAT!? (Score:5, Informative)
2012 Q1: Windows: 50.2%, Unix +Linux: 38.9% --- IDC
Re:WHAT!? Indeed... (Score:5, Informative)
Yet MS wonders why they have such a comparatively tiny market share of the server market...
According to this arstechnica article [arstechnica.com] (2011), Microsoft had a 25% webserver market share (IIS) as of 2010, and 15% as of 2011. For standard servers, they accounted for 71% of all quarterly server shipments (original source [idc.com], IDC). According to a survey in 2010 [securityspace.com] (the only one I could find on smtp market share, and was linked in Wikipedia), Exchange is the third most popular SMTP server (17%-- behind exim @ 34% and postfix @ 21%, and just ahead of sendmail).
You can call that many things, but "comparitively tiny" it isnt. Microsoft server is remarkably popular in SMB situations, and even in larger companies, and trying to write it off as irrelevant or whatever your angle was is silly.
Also silly is the comment about "code already there"-- EVERYONE does this, from RedHat to VMWare to Adobe any other company that sells multiple tiers of its software product.
Re:WHAT!? (Score:4, Informative)
Its also not new. 2008 had this licensing clause. They also allow you to use a single Enterprise license ($2k) to cover up to 4 instances, though unless you really need the enterprise features it doesnt save you any money over the $500 license (though I believe it comes with more CALs).
Re:WHAT!? (Score:2, Informative)
$4k to enable visualization support (that the code already is there for?)
Yet MS wonders why they have such a comparatively tiny market share of the server market...
This is incorrect the virtualization is free. (Hyper-V server anyone?)
4k is for unlimited license on that server.
If you run only 2 cores and less than 10 virtual servers, you will save money by licensing the standard version.
Re:frist (Score:5, Informative)
Just because you never learned how to use a tool doesn't make it bad. It is trivial to configure WSBU to backup individual components, such as system state, volumes or yes, even individual folders. Again - *you* not knowing how to do something doesn't make it impossible.
And for the obligatory Slashdot 2012: no, I am not paid or affiliated in anyway with Microsoft. Sometimes people like the changes they make because they actually tried them and found them better.
Re:WHAT!? (Score:4, Informative)
Huh? Last I saw Linux (all variants) were somewhere in the 65% of web servers in operation right now.
No,65% of web SITES in operation are on Linux. There is a very significant difference as hosters are parkers are very much in the Linux space as Apache seems to run the massive hosting models better than IIS, I would guess Linux probably still has the larger server base for web servers, but that is only one fragment of the server market.
Re:frist (Score:5, Informative)
I found it:
Windows server backup not exchange aware [technet.com]
We have decided to develop and release a VSS-based plug-in for Windows Server Backup that will enable you to properly backup and restore Exchange 2007 with a built-in Windows 2008 backup application.
While you will be able to backup and restore Exchange 2007 on Windows 2008, you should not expect feature parity with the Windows 2003 NTBackup experience.
The removal of NTBackup / its (known) inferior successor: [technet.com]
(Reasons listed there roughly boil down to, 1) most people get third party software; 2) ntbackup was never meant to be an enterprise solution; 3) we think optical media is the future and that tape sucks)
There are lots and lots of other posts on this. More to the point, the features you mention are brand new as of R2 [microsoft.com]-- they were not there in the original release:
Windows Server Backup in Windows Server 2008 R2 includes the following improvements:
More flexibility in what you can back up. Windows Server Backup enables you to back up selected files instead of full volumes. You can also exclude files based on file type and path.
That is, you simply couldnt do this prior to R2, which, along with no tape and no exchange support, made it utterly fall off of my (and many others') radars as utterly irrelevant. Basically all of the cool features you mention simply werent there in the initial release-- it was a straight dumb "image the whole box or nothing at all" program, except it wouldnt even work if you had stuff like Exchange or HyperV and no VSS plugin.
Not only that, but even if I had noticed that release-- which TBQH i did not-- NTBackup was already such a disaster that I would be hesitant even now to return to something like WSB.
It sounds like your experience is mostly with Win Server R2 and above, which is fine; if thats true, just keep in mind that there are a lot of us with horror stories of NTBackup, and that WinServer2008 was not always as polished as it is now.