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Improvements in Windows Server 2008

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During the coming weeks and until the end of the year, we will proceed to hang articles relating to Windows Server 2008. The first in a long line is this: "Improvements in Windows Server 2008."

For several weeks we are preparing for the MCITP certification from Microsoft. We will use this blog to explain more about the preparations for the exams and the material used.

In this first article we build, as in almost all the preparation for the MCITP, in a magnificent book by Jonathan Hassell is titled "Windows Server 2008: The definitive guide", copyright 2008 Print ISBN 978-0-59-651411 - 2. This book of over 500 pages in English is an excellent guide to learn how Windows Server 2008, both beginners and experienced administrators. The book is divided into 14 chapters, very extensive and complete.

In the following link you can get more information from the book: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/9780596514112

In this article we will explain the first chapter of the book. Note that we have tried to summarize the major points of the first chapter. This summary is a very good guide for the preparation of the MCITP certification exam.

Let's get down to business. First of all let's explain that Windows Server 2008 is the new Microsoft server product, launched in early 2008. There are 4 editions:

- Windows Web Server 2008: ideal for web servers, has limitations, mainly have IIS and little else

- Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition (SE) commonly used in business, management constraints up to 2 processors per machine

- Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition (EE): same functionality as SE but adds clustering, hot adding memory, network connections and unlimited limit of up to 8 processors per machine.

- Windows Server 2008 Datacenter Edition (DE): same functionality as SE but adds hot adding processors and limit of 8 to 32 processors per machine.

Then I spent a few links to download previous programs:

Download Windows Server 2008 Standard (x86 and x64)

Download Windows Server 2008 Enterprise (x86 and x64)

Download Windows Server 2008 Datacenter (x86 and x64)

Download Windows Web Server 2008 (x86 and x64)

The main enhancements in Windows Server 2008 compared with earlier versions can be divided into 6 groups, with the first two groups the most important: Server Core and IIS.

1) improvements in Server Core Group

Server Core is a way of installing Windows Server 2008 allowing to manage the number of features of a given system. Administrators can install what you want to manage.

Roles included are: Active Directory, Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services (AD LDS), DHCP Server, DNS Server, Files Server, Print Server, Streaming Server, Windows Server Virtualization and Web Server (IIS).

The functions included are: Bitlocker Drive Encryption, Failover Clustering, Telnet Client, Remove Storage Management, Multipath for input and output, SNMP Services, Windows Server Backup Server and WINS.

2) Group improvements in IIS (Internet Information Services)

IIS provides the tools and features necessary to easily manage a secure web server. We should note that IIS does NOT support dynamic websites, static HTML only.

The main improvements in IIS include:

- Complete control over parts of IIS that you want to install and operate

- Flexible model: developers can access through APIs to the core of IIS

- Simplified configuration XML file Through

- Delegated management: Administrators can delegate IIS control of some functions to other people

- Efficient administration: a new command-line administration utility (appcmd.exe)

3) improvements in networking group

The working group of Windows Server 2008 has placed particular emphasis on improvements related to networking, such as can manage dual IPv4 and IPv6 simultaneously. The security of communications is enhanced with IPsec.

The main improvements are the following 3:

- TCP / IP Stack: Many changes in this version are related to the communication stack TCP / IP. The main two are:

Auto tuning TCP windows size: Windows Server 2008 enables automatically enhance the size of the receive window of each connection, thus increasing its efficiency in data transfers between hosts on the same network.
Scaling Networking: Windows Server 2008 enables scaling of NICs and their associations of traffic with multiple CPUs. Previously a NIC was associated with a single physical processor. With this release multiple NICs can be associated with multiple processors.

- Changes in Terminal Services: Network applications have dramatically increased the need in recent years, therefore the team of Windows Server 2008 introduces new enhancements in this section. Primarily we will discuss three improvements:

TS RemoteApp: Windows Server 2008 supports the ability to define programs that run directly to TS-enabled server but are integrated with the local copy of Windows user, allowing independent task bars, adjustable window sizes, Alt-tab functions , and more.
TS Gateway allows users to access applications from Terminal Services-hosted web page with security via encrypted HTTPS channel. Through The Gateway sends connection firewalls.
Active Directory, Read-only Domain Controler: Read-only Domain Controller (RODC) is a good way to manage domains in companies with different sites across a WAN. RODC can manage safely domains (only allows reading) on machines where the domain controller is not physically protected role as a machine in a datacenter. RODC makes a copy of the domain controller in each office allowing logins with more speed and efficiency, giving greater security in front of intrusive attacks to be just the read-only domain.

4) Group security improvements

The working group of Windows Server 2008 has placed particular emphasis on safety-related improvements. The issue of security has been improved substantially in each new version of Windows Server. Major enhancements in this release are 5:

- OS File Protection: Operating System File Protection ensures the integrity of the boot process servers. Windows Server 2008 creates a validation key to use the files in the OS kernel, it also creates a HAL (hardware abstraction layer specific) for the system and drivers that start. If any subsequence of these keys to start after modifying these files, the OS will know and boot processes so they can be repaired.

- BitLocker: is designed for scenarios where a thief has physical access on a hard drive. Without encryption the hacker can boot the disk with another operating system or a hacking tool and steal all. With Bitlocker encrypts the whole operating system, passwords are stored in a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) chip in your system or on a USB flash memory.

- Device Installation Control: controls the installation and use of new devices installed in the system. Administrators can block new devices installed as USB sticks, external HDD, ...). Group Policy is set by machine level. This system allows us to solve such a classic case of we do a thousand and one layer of security, but there comes a user with a flash drive and save a file. An elegant way we can manage instead of disabling ports to sack.

- Windows Firewall with Advanced Security: This firewall combines firewall with IPsec management into a unified management console (MMC snap-in). The firewall engine has been redefined to reduce coordination between filtering and IPsec.

- Network Access Protection (NAP) is a platform of protection where the machines are tested by rules defined by administrators, and if a machine fails the test can prevent access to the network (Quarentena). NAP has 3 major components:

Health Policy Validation: when a machine tries to connect to the network performs a safety check to see if it meets the security policies.
Health Policy Compliance: compliance policies are applied if a machine fails the validation test. Automatically makes an update or is addressed through Systems Management Server such as Windows Update.
Limited Access:
- Active Mode: If the machine does not meet the validation starts quarantena, is isolated from the network.
- Monitoring-only mode: if the machine fails the validation, not policies in isolation but is tracked by a log.

We should note that NAP is only a platform to perform these checks, as SHAs tools required (system health agents) and SHVS (system health validators) to perform these validations on each machine individually.

5) improvements in manageability Group

The management of all components were added in Windows Server 2008 should be just as easy, understanding that the improvements made for this reason has been treated with care improvements in usability of management. Mainly two actors have changed very common in a Windows Server:

- Server Manager: helps simplify management tasks from a server to control their stability, integrity, roles installed, events in real time ... Server Manager is the union of Your System Configure, Manage Your System Configuration Wizards and Securuty legacy .

- Windows Deployment Services: based on the old tool RIS (remote installation services), which allows installation of operating systems through the network. This tool is very grateful for network administrators, has improved substantially.

6) Group Performance and Reliability improvements Upgrades

As in other aspects we tried to improve the reliability and staging of various services. Among them has been improved:

- Performance Diagnostics Console: is the fusion of Task Manager and Performance Monitor in one console.

- Resource View: console for viewing processes and services are using the resources of the machine.

- Reliability Monitor: shows a detailed view of what events are happening in a space of time, which are degrading the stability of the server.

So much for the summary of the first chapter of this excellent book. We pretentido to sketch study for readers to easily understand the main improvements provided by Windows Server 2008 over the old versions.

We recall that tuquiosco.es tech news editors looking to increase the number and quality of the articles. If you are interested in helping write to info@tuquiosco.es

1 Comment to "Improvements in Windows Server 2008"

Bitacoras.com July 6, 2010 at 16:47
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Rate in Bitacoras.com: During the coming weeks and until the end of the year, we will proceed to hang articles relating to Windows Server 2008. The first in a long line is this: "Improvements in Windows Server 2008." For weeks we .....

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