what is new in windows 8 server ?

Hello again. This is another article about Windows 8. But this time I will talk about the server version of this operating system. As you all know, approximately 1 month ago, Microsoft made the Developer Preview of its next generation operating system available through its MSDN website. The installation of the operating system is somehow similar (but shorter) to the installation of its client version brother. But the interior is different of course. Let me first show you the installation and then I will talk about new features coming with the Server 8.

The ISO file of the setup DVD for Windows 8 Server is reachable through the MSDN site as I mentioned before. Therefore if you are an MSDN subscriber, you can  download it via http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/subscriptions/downloads/default.aspx . As you can see in Figure 1, you have to sign in to the website and you must have the permission to download this server product.

Figure 1: MSDN Subscriber webpage

You may want to read the system requirements for Windows Server 8 Developer Preview installation first.  This information can be reached through http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsserver/hh440457 webpage (actually using resources less than the ones mentioned in the webpage doesn’t prevent the installation to be completed).
OK. Let me start with the installation process now. After I insert my installation DVD into my server, I boot the server with it and the first screen is (as usual) time/keyboard/language selection screen as seen in Figure 2. After I complete the selections, I begin to install Windows 8 Server by pressing “Install Now” button on the next screen (Figure 3).

Figure 2: Time/keyboard/language selection screen

Figure 3: “Install now”

The following screen is the selection of the operating system type screen. Here, I have three types of operating system to install and I select the first choice which is full installation (Figure 4). In here, a very new installation type “Features on Demand” is also listed (which I am not very familiar with for now).  The next 3 screens are License Agreement, type of installation (upgrade or Custom) and disk selection screens. After a couple of Next buttons, I finish the installation of Developer Preview edition of the new Windows operating system. The first screen represented after a reboot is “Settings” screen which is actually the place that I decide the administrators password (Figure 5). That is all :) . No more questions. This represents me the CTRL+ALT+DEL screen (Figure 6) and I logon to my new server.

Figure 4: Operating System types

Figure 5: Settings screen

Figure 6: CTRL+ALT+DEL screen

After I logon to the operating system, “Server Manager” window is opened automatically. It is completely different than its predecessors as you can see in Figure 7. I will not get into detail about it now because we will play with it in future articles. Therefore that is end of installation part. Not that difficult, huh?

Figure 7: New “Server manager” interface

Now I want to talk about the new features coming with this new operating system. According to the Windows guys, there are 300 new features/improvements in this version but I couldn’t explain all of them of course :)  .  Therefore I will talk about the most important ones (according to me).
You saw Server Manager in Figure 7 and as you understand it had a new Metro Style interface. That is not I am going to talk about Server Manager but it has a new capability now. You can do multiserver management via Server Manager of Windows 8 Server (Figure 8). What I mean by this? With Server Manager, you can (for example) install updates, reboot and load File Services Role or DNS role on four servers simultaneously. No need to do one by one.

Figure 8: You can put additional servers in the list to add the same role simultaneously

Another new feature (actually an improvement) is Hyper-V version 3. It has new specifications now (and may change with RTM). Hyper-V version 3 supports 160 CPU cores and 2TB memory on host machines. It supports 32 CPU cores and 512 GB memory per virtual machine. Another feature it has is the new file format VHDX. VHDX can exceed 2TB in size and runs faster than VHD format. Hyper-V version 3 can grow up to 63 nodes in a cluster and supports 4000 virtual machines per cluster.
Windows 8 Server can team the network cards natively. Before Windows 8 Server, we can team the network cards with the manufacturer’s teaming tools/softwares but now it is not needed. Most importantly, we can team NICs that have totally different chipsets. Therefore Windows can load balance the network job and if one of the NICs fails, It continues its job seamlessly.
One of the coolest feature that Windows 8 Server introduces is Dynamic Access Control. It is a new approach for file/folder permissions. To be clear, it uses tags for file/folder access (like Microsoft Office Tags). For example, you can give each personnel of the Finance department a specific title in Active Directory and Windows 8 File Server can use the Active Directory Title Attribute as a tag. As a result, it lets the personnel reach the files and folders which are classified for this tag. This feature may rescue administrators from too many security groups which are created just for giving permissions on file server.
The last feature that I want to mention in this article is de-duplication feature. If there are files with multiple copies in the hard drive, Windows 8 Server can save space by keeping one real copy of them and pointer for the rest. For example, you have multiple Windows Server 2003 virtual machines created on your Windows 8  Hyper-V server and each of these virtual machines have calculator.exe file. Windows 8 Server knows about these redundant files and keep only one of them. The rest is just pointers to this kept one. I think you got the idea ;)
Hopefully and most probably, there will be more stuff in Windows 8 Server when it is released. I tried to mention the most important ones (in my opinion) in this article. I hope you enjoyed it. See you next time.