So Microsoft bounces in with one more brand new server solution. Normally, we obtain new versions of Microsoft server items are much better than their predecessors and undoubtedly considerably greater than their desktop operating technique counterparts which have caused a few ripples of excitement but a lot more of nervousness and individuals seem to be awaiting the inevitable service pack 1 release.
Getting had a play with the release preview of Windows Server 2012, we have discovered some exciting things about the new server to share with you. Some individuals are sceptical about the new interface formerly known as Metro, but with far more emphasis on Server Core and the Minimal Server Interface, the UI is unlikely to be the deciding element when choosing to upgrade. Far more critical are the major alterations and new capabilities that make Server 2012 greater capable to manage your network’s workloads and requirements.
Right here are 11 motives to give serious consideration to upgrading to Server 2012 sooner rather than later.
1: Freedom of interface choice
A Server Core installation offers security and overall performance benefits, but in the past, you had to make a selection: If you installed Server Core, you have been stuck with it with only the command line as your interface. Even so, this alterations with Windows Server 2012.
Microsoft realised that the command line is excellent for some tasks and the graphical interface is preferable for other individuals. Server 2012 makes the GUI a “feature” – 1 that can be turned on and off at will, as a result saving sources when the server is basically being a server. You do it by means of the Eliminate Roles or Capabilities alternative in Server Manager.
2: Server Manager
Concerning the Server Manager, even several of these who dislike the new (metro) tile-based interface all round have admitted that the design’s implementation in the new Server Manager is brilliant.
A single of the most effective points about the new Server Manager is the multi-server capabilities, which tends to make it uncomplicated to deploy roles and attributes remotely to physical and virtual servers. It’s effortless to produce a server group – a collection of servers that can be managed with each other. The remote administration improvements let you provision servers with no obtaining to make an RDP connection.
3: Server Message Block three.
The SMB protocol has been drastically enhanced in Windows Server 2012 as properly as Windows 8. The new version supports new file server attributes, like SMB transparent failover, SMB Scale Out, SMB Multichannel, SMB Direct, SMB encryption, VSS for SMB file sharing, SMB directory leasing, and SMB PowerShell. It also functions beautifully with Hyper-V, so that VHD files and virtual machine configuration files can be hosted on SMB three. shares. A SQL system database can be stored on an SMB share, as effectively, with improvements to efficiency.
4: Dynamic Access Handle (DAC)
Microsoft has shifted the focus from separate safety items to a far more “baked in” strategy of integrating safety into each and every aspect of the operating technique.
Dynamic Access Manage is one particular such example, assisting IT Pros build far more centralized security models for access to network resources by tagging sensitive data both manually and automatically, primarily based on factors such as the file content material or the creator. Right after that, claims primarily based access controls can be applied.
five: Storage Spaces
Storage is an interesting subject in the IT business these days. We are nevertheless a long way off storing anything in the cloud lots of organizations are nonetheless concerned about safety and reliability. There are rdp cheap of options for storing data on your network in a way that delivers greater utilisation of storage resources, centralized management, improved scalability along with security and reliability, SANs and NAS do that, but they can be pricey.
Storage Spaces is a fantastic new feature in Server 2012 that lets you use inexpensive difficult drives to make a storage pool, which can then be divided into spaces that are utilised like physical disks. They can involve hot standby drives and use redundancy techniques such as two- or three-way mirroring or parity. What is good is that you can add new disks any time, and a space can be bigger than the physical capacity of the pool. When you add new drives, the space automatically utilizes the added capacity.
six: Virtualisation
Virtualisation was the biggest issue just before the cloud hit the IT sector and it is still the issue to do when it comes to servers. Hyper-V is Microsoft’s answer to VMware / XenServer. Microsoft’s virtualisation platform is liked by a lot of IT Pro’s and with each new version Windows hypervisor gets a small much better, and Hyper-V in Windows Server 2012 brings a number of new attributes to the table. One of the most interesting is Hyper-V Replica.
This is a replication mechanism that will be a disaster recovery Godsend to SMBs that might not be capable to deploy complex and costly replication solutions. It logs alterations to the disks in a VM and uses compression to save on bandwidth, replicating from a principal server to a replica server.
You are able to retailer many snapshots of a VM on the replica server and then select the one particular you want to use. It functions with both standalone hosts and clusters in any mixture.