What's New In Windows Server 2008 R2 For IT Pro

Editor's Notes

• #3: Builds on the Windows Server 2008 foundationShippedsimultaneously (Windows 2000 Server® was first). 64-bit only
• #5: Server virtualization provided by Hyper-V. Hyper-V™ in Windows Server 2008 R2 is a micro-kernelized hypervisor which manages a server’s system resources to provide a virtualized environment for operating systems and applications. Hyper-V™ is the cornerstone for server virtualization and when used in conjunction with Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), Hyper-V™ is used for client computer virtualization.Presentation virtualization. Virtualizes a processing environment and isolates the processing from the graphics and I/O, making it possible to run an application in one location but have it be controlled in another. Presentation virtualization might allow you to run only a single application, or it might present you with a complete desktop offering multiple applications. Windows Server 2008 R2 offers a host of new capabilities for administrators taking advantage of presentation virtualization.
• #7: Beginning with Windows Server 2008, computer virtualization by using Hyper-V technology has been an integral part of the operating system. Now, Hyper-V in Windows Server 2008 R2 has been updated as a part of Windows Server 2008 R2. The new Hyper-V is an enabling technology for the marquee feature of Windows Server 2008 R2: Live Migration. This allows virtual machines to be moved between failover cluster nodes without interruption of services provided by the virtual machines. The users connected to the virtual machine being moved will notice only a slight drop in performance for a few moments. Otherwise, they will be unaware that the virtual machine was moved from one physical computer to another.In a typical live migration a user is connected to a VM on cluster node 1. An administrator begins the live migration which copies the VM’s config data from node 1 to node 2. It then takes an initial memory snapshot and moves that to node 2. But because users are still connected and interacting with node 1, this memory state changes. To keep the migration seamless, node 1 and node 2 must perform a memory sync. When the two are completely in sync, node 1 goes offline and user 1 is instantly connected to node 2 with no service interruption or perceived downtime.While not a requirement, Live Migration can make good use of the new Cluster Shared Volumes feature in failover clustering. The Cluster Shared Volumes feature supports a file system that is shared between cluster nodes. The Cluster Shared Volumes feature is implemented as a filter driver in Windows Server 2008 R2. Live Migration allows you to perform maintenance on the original physical computer by moving the virtual machines on that computer to another physical computer. Because you have no disruption of service, high user uptime is maintained.Quick Facts:Moving from Quick to Live Migration requires:Changes to VMs: NoChanges to storage infrastructure: NoChanges to network infrastructure: NoUpdate to Windows 7 Hyper-V: Yes
• #8: Historically, deploying operating systems and applications to physical and virtual computers used different methods. For virtual computers, the .vhd file format has become a de facto standard for deploying and interchanging pre-configured operating systems and applications.Windows Server 2008 R2 also supports the ability to boot a computer from a .vhd file stored on a local hard disk. This allows you to use preconfigured .vhd files for deploying virtual and physical computers. This helps reduce the number of images that you need to manage and provides an easier method for your testing deployment prior to deployment in your production environment.
• #9: Hyper-V support for VDI -Providing a better virtualization platform for scalable and highly available VDI deploymentsLive Migration of Virtual Machines – With Live Migration, there will be no perceived downtime in the desktop workloads running in the VM, and network connections from and to the VM being migrated will stay connected. This capability will be possible between hosts within a High Availability cluster.Support for Enhanced Virtualization Capabilities in the Hardware – Support for Nested Page Tables (NPT) and Extended Page tables (EPT) in Intel and AMD hardware. These capabilities improve the performance of translation of memory addresses.Thenew Remote Desktop Connection Broker, which extends the Session Broker capabilities already found in Windows Server 2008, creates a unified admin experience for traditional session-based remote desktops and (new) virtual machine-based remote desktops. The two key deployment scenarios supported by the Remote Desktop Connection Broker, besides traditional TS, are persistent (permanent) VMs and pooled VMs. In either case, the in-box solution supports storage of the image(s) on the Hyper-V host.SCVMM 2008 support provides intelligent placement of VMs during placement, fast and reliable P2V and V2V (VMware to Hyper-V) conversions as well monitoring of all virtual and physical assets from “one single pane of glass”.
• #10: Note for speaker: use this slide if you need to cover the improvements in one slide.You can omit if you are using the following slides to drill down in detailsRDS & VDIIncreasingly businesses aim to enable their employees and contractors to work from home or from an offshore, outsourced facility. These new work environments provide better flexibility, cost control and lower environmental footprint but increase demand for security and compliance so that precious Corporate data is not at risk.To address these challenges, Microsoft has been investing in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, also known as VDI, in collaboration with our partners, which include Citrix, Unisys, HP, Quest, Ericom and several others. We’ve also been adding management and performance features to our Terminal Services-based virtualization, combining the two to form the most flexible presentation virtualization offering in Windows Server’s history. To better illustrate the breadth of these features, we’ve decided to rename Terminal Services to Remote Desktop Services.RDS incorporates all the features of Terminals Services and expands on them. VDI is a centralized desktop delivery architecture which allows customers to centralize the storage, execution and management of a Windows desktop in the data center. It enables Windows Vista Enterprise and other desktop environments to run and be managed in virtual machines on a centralized server.Improving the user experienceFor both VDI and traditional remote desktop services the quality of user experience is more important than ever before. Microsoft is making great progress in improving the end user experience through new Remote Desktop Protocol capabilities.These new capabilities, enabled with Windows Server 2008 R2 in combination with Windows7 Enterprise Edition and Ultimate Edition, improve significantly the experience of remote users, making it more similar to the experience enjoyed by users accessing local computing resourcesRemoteApp & Desktop ConnectionsNew Remote Desktop & Application feedsprovides a set of resources, such as RemoteApp programs and Remote Desktops. These feeds are presented to Windows 7 users using the new RemoteApp & Desktop Connection control panel. The new RemoteApp & Desktop Web Access provides the ability to connect to resources from Vista & XP in addition to Windows 7.Improved Management ToolsetRemote Desktops Services in Windows Server 2008 R2 focuses on improving management for all the existing scenarios delivered previously in Terminal Services and the exciting new scenarios in Remote Desktop Services; additionally we have added features to help improve application compatibility  Perhaps this should be security and platform bucket and then have a separate management bucket?Platform InvestmentsMultiple levels of extensibility for custom partner solutions for Remote Desktop Services & VDI based solutions
• #12: The ongoing management of servers in the datacenter is one of most time consuming tasks facing IT professionals today. Any management strategy you deploy must support the management of both your physical and virtual environments. A specific goal for Windows Server 2008 R2 is reducing the ongoing management of Windows Server 2008 R2 and reducing the administrative effort required for completing common day-to-day operational tasks. The management improvements in Windows Server 2008 R2 include the following: Improved datacenter power consumption management. Streamlined management; support for standards, updated management consoles Reduced administrative effort for administrative tasks performed interactively. Enhanced command-line and automated management by using PowerShell version 2.0. Improved identity management provided by Active Directory Domain Services and Active Directory Federated Services. Improved compliance with established standards and best practices.
• #13: The Core Parking feature, which is configured by using Group Policy, allows Windows Server 2008 R2 to consolidate process onto the fewest number of possible processor cores and suspends inactive processor cores. If additional processing power is required, the Core Parking feature activates inactive processor cores to handle the increased processing requirements. Windows Server 2008 R2 has the ability to adjust processor performance (or, “P-state”) and subsequently adjust the server power consumption. Depending on the processor architecture, you can configure how P-states are adjusted by using Group Policy, giving you very fine control over processor power consumption.Windows Server 2008 R2 supports the ability to boot from Storage Area Network (SAN), which eliminates the need for local hard disks in the individual server computers. And the performance for accessing storage on SANs has been greatly improved.
• #15: Windows Server 2008 R2 has a number of improvements in remote administration, including the following:Improved remote management through updated graphical management consoles. Server Manager has been updated in a number of ways, including tight integration with other Windows Server core roles and Best Practice Analyzers. But one customer request that was most pervasive for Server Manager was the ability to install SM on an admin’s workstation and manage all the servers to which the admin has access from a remote console. We’ve answered that request in Windows Server 2008 R2. We’ve also gone to great lengths to more tightly integrate Server Manager with specific workload management consoles, including AD, Hyper-V and more.The new Active Directory Administrative Center combines the features administrators used to visit multiple areas for into a single cohesive interface. IT’s also written entirely on top of PowerShell, which means all tasks can be done on both the command line and the GUI. You’ll also find new task-driven features, including a cool new Recycle bin, offline domain joins and more.The new IIS Manager is another example of tight integration between R2’s management consoles and PowerShell. Using its PowerShell provider, IIS Manager not only eases Web management overall, but also enables remote management even across Server Core.Hyper-V Manager also includes new VM management tools, notably Live Migration. But much of its functionality is also mirrored in the upcoming System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 release, which will be tool of choice for managing large virtualized installations.Improved remove management from command-line and automated scripts. PowerShell version 2.0 has a number of improvements for remote management scenarios. These improvements allow you to run scripts on one or more remote computers or allow multiple IT professionals to simultaneously run scripts on a single computer.
• #16: Graphical PowerShell provides a graphical user interface that allows you to interactively create and debug PowerShell scripts within an integrated development environment similar to Visual Studio®. Graphical PowerShell include the following features: Syntax coloring for PowerShell scripts (similar to syntax coloring in Visual Studio). Support for Unicode characters. Support for composing and debugging multiple PowerShell scripts in a multi-tabbed interface. Ability to run an entire script, or a portion a script, within the integrated development environment. Support for up to eight PowerShell Runspaces within the integrated development environment. The new Out-GridView cmdlet displays the results of other commands in an interactive table, where you can search, sort, and group the results. For example, you can send the results of a get-process, get-wmiobject, or get-eventlog command to out-gridview and use the table features to examine the data.Note: Graphical PowerShell feature requires Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0.
• #17: For example, you can send the results of a get-process, get-wmiobject, or get-eventlog command to out-gridview and use the table features to examine the data.
• #18: The Active Directory Domain Service server role in Windows Server 2008 R2 includes the following improvements:Recovery of deleted objects. Domains in Active Directory now have a Recycle Bin feature that allows you to recover deleted objects. If an Active Directory object is inadvertently deleted, you can restore the object from the Recycle Bin. This feature requires the forest to be running in the Windows Server 7 functional level.Improved process for joining domains. Computers can now join a domain without being connected to the domain during the deployment process, also known as an offline domain join. This process allows you to fully automate the joining of a domain during deployment. Domain administrators create a file that can be included as a part of the automated deployment process. The file includes all the information necessary for the target computer to join the domain.Improved management of user accounts used as identity for services. One of the time consuming management tasks is to maintain passwords for user accounts that are used as identities for services, also known as service accounts. When the password for a service account changes, the services using that identity must also be updated with the new password. To address this problem, Windows Server 2008 R2 includes a new feature called managed service accounts. In Windows Server 2008 R2, when the password for a service account changes, the managed service account feature automatically updates the password for all the services that use the service account.Reduced effort to perform common administrative tasks. Windows Server 2008 R2 includes a new Active Directory Domain Services management console, Active Directory Administrative Center, which is a task-based management console that is based on the new PowerShell cmdlets in Windows Server 2008 R2. Improved Active Directory Federated Services. Active Directory Federated Services in Windows Server 2008 R2 includes a new feature called authentication assurance. Authentication assurance allows you to establish authentication policies for accounts that are authenticated in federated domains. For example, you might require smart card authentication or other biometric authentication for any users in federated domains.
• #20: We’ve also leveraged our successful Best Practice Analyzer technology. This was first introduced with other platforms, notably Exchange, and compared the server upon it was run to all the best practice compliance knowledge that Microsoft had available in its knowledgebase. This extends down to configurations and network environments specific to a particular server and the BPA comes back with a complete best practice analysis report, including advice for fixing problems and links back to the Microsoft Web site for more detailed information. Customers have been big fans of this technology and Windows Server 2008 R2 has answered that feedback by providing BPAs for all the server roles available in R2. Administrators can now quickly configure an R2 for any scenario and immediately get back optimized config information. The Best Practices Analyzer creates a checklist within Server Manager for the role that you can use to help you perform all the configuration tasks.
• #24: פעם היו חייבים לינוקס ל-PHPאפשר לנהל סביבת PHP בצורה הרבה יותר פשוטהאפשר להמיר את הקוד הקיים
• #27: Another key design goal was to provide higher performance for Windows Server 2008 R2 running on the same system resources as previous versions of Windows Server. In addition, Windows Server 2008 R2 supports increased scaling capabilities that allow you to support greater workloads than ever before. The Windows Server 2008 R2 features that improve performance and scalability for applications and services include:Scaling OutSupport for larger workloads by adding additional servers to a workload (scaling out)Scaling UpSupport for larger workloads by utilizing or increasing system resources (scaling up)The Network Load Balancing feature in Windows Server 2008 R2 allows you to combine two or more computers in to a cluster. You can use Network Load Balancing to distribute workloads across the cluster nodes to support larger number of simultaneous users. The Network Load Balancing feature improvements in Windows Server 2008 R2 include:IP Stickiness. The IP Stickiness feature in Network Load Balancing allows you to configure longer affinity between client and cluster nodes by using a configurable timeout setting for connection state (hours or even weeks in length). Common usage scenarios include Universal Access Gateway (UAG) with Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Virtual Private Network (VPN) and IIS or ASP.NET applications (shopping cart).PowerShell support. PowerShell cmdlets provide the ability to fully manage Network Load Balancing clusters and the applications running on the cluster. The PowerShell cmdlets replace nlb.exe, which provided a command-line and scriptable interface for managing Network Load Balancing clusters in previous versions of Windows Server. These PowerShell cmdlets allow you to:Create and destroy clusters.Add, remove, and control cluster nodes.Add , edit, and remove cluster virtual IP addresses and dedicated IP address.Provide support for local and remote management.Application health awareness. Awareness for applications running on IIS by using the NLB management pack in R2. Support up to 128 logical processors.Run more workloads on Server Core installation option.Has improved disk access to storage devices connected through iSCSI and other remote storage solutions. Scaling up allows you to reduce the number of servers in your datacenter and be more power efficient. The features in Windows Server 2008 R2 that support scaling up include:Increased number of logical processors supported. Windows Server 2008 R2 Datacenter Edition supports up to 256 logical processors.Reduced operating system overhead for graphical user interface. In addition to reducing the attack surface of the operating system, the Server Core installation option eliminates the graphical user interface, which reduces the amount of processor utilization. The reduction in processor utilization allows more of the processing power to be used for running workloads.Improved performance for storage devices. Windows Server 2008 R2 includes a number of performance improvements for managing network-connected storage, including new support for iSCSI SANs, 10gig Ethernet wirespeed throughput
• #30: Infrastructure to classify files and apply policy based on classificationMessagingWindows Server 2008 R2 File Classification Infrastructure provides insight into your data to help you manage your data more effectively, reduce costs and mitigate risks by providing a built-in solution for file classification allowing administrators to automate manual processes with predefined policies based on the data’s business value. Also provided is an extensible infrastructure upon which ISVs can build end-to-end solutions that enable organizations to perform advanced classification and data management helping enable Microsoft partners to deliver rich classification solutions.
• #31: Cluster Shared VolumesNot a requirement for Live Migration, but highly recommended. CSV enables true storage sharing over SANs.No special hardware requirementsNo special application requirementsNo file type restrictionsNo directory structure or depth limitationsNo special agents or additional installationsNo proprietary file systemUses well established traditional NTFSGuest VMs can be moved without requiring any drive ownership changesNo dismounting and remounting of volumes is requiredEnabling multiple nodes to concurrently access a single ‘truly’ shared LUNProvides VM’s complete transparency with respect to which nodes actually own a LUNOnly supported with Hyper-VCSV provides a single consistent file name spaceFiles have the same name and path when viewed from anynode in the cluster
• #34: Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 gives IT Professionals more control over their server and network infrastructure, and provides an enterprise-class foundation for business workloads. Microsoft enables organizations to deliver rich Web-based experiences efficiently and effectively, by reducing the amount of effort required to administer and support your Web-based applications. The powerful Virtualization technologies in Windows Server 2008 R2 enable you to increase your server consolidation ratios, while reducing the amount of administrative effort required for managing the infrastructure. Through increased automation and improved remote administration, Windows Server 2008 R2 helps organizations save money and time, by reducing travel expenses, decreasing energy consumption, and automating repetitive IT tasks. When combined with Windows 7 client operating system, the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure in Windows Server 2008 enables you to provide your employees with anywhere access to corporate data and resources, while helping to maintain the security of your enterprise systems.
• #36: Lessexpensiveconfiguration ($2245 per processor) that offers both Live Migration and High Availability