Top Five Reasons to Like Windows Server 8

Out of the all the updated features in Microsoft’s newly announced Windows Server 8, here are a handful of features that I know will make IT pros happy.

Server Manager

The new Server Manager UI was designed as a one stop shop where IT Pros can manage multiple machines from a single interface.  A featured dashboard design simplifies groupings of servers based on roles; for example, web, SQL and file servers can all be managed, maintained and troubleshot within their own categories.

Hyper-V v.3

Already covered here, but in brief, Microsoft has really brought Hyper-V to the level where IT shops, large and small, finally have another full-featured option for implementing a virtual infrastructure.  Features like Live Migration over the network, Live Storage Migration, Virtual Networking and Virtual HBAs will open eyes in a VMware centric world.

Server Core

In Windows Server 8, Microsoft is making Server Core their preferred deployment configuration.  Server admins can now go back and forth between core installations and full installations by simply adding and removing components.  No more one-way builds that require full re-installs after realization that Server Core installation wasn’t enough.

DHCP Failover

Tired of having DHCP servers being a single point of failure?  How about departments paying a significant amount of money for third party DHCP solutions?  Do you want load balancing between servers?  Windows Server 8 now has DHCP services with active-active and active-passive failover capabilities.  If a DHCP server is lost, new addresses come from the failover partner as leases are replicated and managed between the failover pair either in a single- or multi-site deployment.

PowerShell 3.0

PowerShell has been so integrated into Windows Server 8 that IT pros won’t have any excuse to not learn it.  Windows utilities used to manage services like virtualization, storage, networking and web are built on top off PowerShell 3.0 and with over 2300 cmdlets, scripting out tasks and operations is even more compelling.  Enhanced intellisense functionality will also make it easier to learn for those new to this command-line interface.

And finally, honorable mention goes to…

CHKDSK (Checkdisk)

After all these,CHKDSK has finally been improved.  No more 24 hour downtimes while a system is going through a disk checking procedure.  Now operating in two parts, CHKDSK can run while the affected server is up.  The first part checks for file system problems then the second part kicks in and fixes only the logged corruptions.  At most, your troubled file system goes off line for a few seconds and remounts without having to go into a reboot.

Like I mentioned, these are but a few of the hundreds of changes that are slated to come with Windows Server 8.  Stay tuned as I’m sure this list will grow as other worthwhile features are announced in the coming future.