After what seems like years of planning (oh wait, hang on, it has been years of planning), the Heroes Happen Here launch is underway at the Nokia Theater here in Los Angeles.
We have been saying that this is the biggest event for IT professionals and developers that Microsoft has ever hosted, and it certainly seems that way. There is a huge crowd here and this morning the lines snaked all around the LA Convention Center and our registration booths were inundated with customers and partners trying to be part of this historic day. Of course, today is the day we launch Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008, and Visual Studio 2008, but more importantly, today is the day we celebrate all the individuals around the world who go the extra mile and put in the extra efffort in their daily lives to make I.T. work for the masses. You know them. In fact, you're one yourself - Heroes.
We've just been treated to a wonderful opening speech by Tom Brokaw, of NBC Nightly News, and now Steve Ballmer is describing the move towards Dynamic IT, and how these new products can help customers to really take best advantage of their IT resources and make their infrastructure and solutions more agile and more impactful. These products have been developed with more customer involvement and input than any other release we've ever had, and it shows. For example, Windows Server 2008 is our most tested server release ever, with over 3,000,000 copies downloaded and distributed throughout the world since our first public release at Beta 3. We've had customers in Technology Adoption Programs, Technical Beta programs, Rapid Deployment Programs, Go Live programs, and of course, IT professionals and developers have been treated to Community Technology Preview releases through MSDN and TechNet over the course of the development cycle. All of this input has helped us to polish highly-regarded and well-reviewed features such as Server Core, IIS 7.0, Network Access Protection, Terminal Services RemoteApp, Hyper-V, Windows PowerShell, Failover Clustering, Server Manager and more.
Even if you couldn't make it to LA. yourself, or if you haven't been able to register for one of the other 200+ launch events around the world, check out the Virtual Launch Experience online for an incredibly rich and interactive experience that is almost as good as being here. I'll post further updates later today on some of the launch announcements and cool things that are happening here.
In the meantime, you can read our full launch press release on the Server and Tools Business News Bytes blog, and you can read more detail on these announcements on the following blogs:
UPDATE:
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announces the launch of Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008 and SQL Server 2008 with 4,000 customers and partners in Los Angeles. Watch the keynote here.
Couple more videos for you:
Watch: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer talks with Al Gillen, system software research VP at IDC, about what the launch means for business customers and industry partners.
David Lowe.
As we ramp up for the largest enterprise launch in Microsoft history, Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008, this is a great time to share some additional big news.
In August of 2007, when Microsoft and Cisco made an announcement that we were committed to working together, there was already some tangible work on interoperability between our companies, including NAC/NAP integration and several interoperability initiatives with our respective unified communications products. Today, we are announcing that we are expanding our collaboration into the branch office market.
Microsoft and Cisco are announcing that Cisco will offer Windows Server 2008 as part of their Wide Area Application Services (WAAS) appliances. Let’s start by looking at what Cisco WAAS is and then we’ll look at how Windows Server 2008 fits in.
Cisco WAAS: Cisco Wide Area Application Services (WAAS) is a WAN optimization solution that improves the performance of TCP-based applications operating in a WAN environment. The basic idea is to accelerate access to servers and applications that have been centralized into corporate data centers. This provides LAN-like application performance for branch office users while taking advantage of the IT infrastructure simplification that comes from centralization. This certainly sounds like a win-win situation for customers, but we need to look a little deeper to understand why Cisco and Microsoft decided this was the next major area of collaboration for our companies. Base IT Services: When you centralize servers you quickly find out that there are some critical services that branch users and IT pros alike depend on. There are services like DHCP and DNS, that are required for just about everything, and then there is the “little” matter of managing printers, print queues and print driver distribution in the branch. And finally, users need to authenticate, process login scripts, and apply appropriate policies to connect to corporate resources – most often through Microsoft Active Directory®. All of this infrastructure is provided by Windows Server for many Microsoft and Cisco customers. Customers have been talking with us about continuing to provide these services in the branch – even if they want to centralize everything else – and eliminate the need to deploy multiple physical devices into each branch office.
Cisco WAAS:
Cisco Wide Area Application Services (WAAS) is a WAN optimization solution that improves the performance of TCP-based applications operating in a WAN environment. The basic idea is to accelerate access to servers and applications that have been centralized into corporate data centers. This provides LAN-like application performance for branch office users while taking advantage of the IT infrastructure simplification that comes from centralization.
This certainly sounds like a win-win situation for customers, but we need to look a little deeper to understand why Cisco and Microsoft decided this was the next major area of collaboration for our companies.
Base IT Services:
When you centralize servers you quickly find out that there are some critical services that branch users and IT pros alike depend on. There are services like DHCP and DNS, that are required for just about everything, and then there is the “little” matter of managing printers, print queues and print driver distribution in the branch. And finally, users need to authenticate, process login scripts, and apply appropriate policies to connect to corporate resources – most often through Microsoft Active Directory®.
All of this infrastructure is provided by Windows Server for many Microsoft and Cisco customers. Customers have been talking with us about continuing to provide these services in the branch – even if they want to centralize everything else – and eliminate the need to deploy multiple physical devices into each branch office.
With features such as Read-Only Domain Controller, BitLocker Drive Encryption, Server Core, and network protocol improvements, Windows Server 2008 is a great platform for the branch office. And now, through a virtualization component that Cisco will be embedding in their WAAS appliances, Cisco will offer Windows Server 2008 as part of their WAN optimization solution. This means that IT can offer all of the performance and availability benefits of having base IT services in the branch office without the need for extra hardware. In fact, deployment is all centrally managed, entirely through software!
And in order to make sure that this is a solution that our customers can depend on, both Cisco and Microsoft will be validating the resulting architecture, provide deployment guidance, and most importantly, provide integrated support. That is why we are so excited about this announcement – this is more than just a high-level commitment to cooperate, it’s about delivering real IT solutions that work well together across software and networks.
Enterprise customers tell us that it is great to see Cisco and Microsoft working together like this. We would love to hear what you think, so let us know how you see solutions like this fitting into your branch infrastructure.
Adam J Skewgar
Group Product Manager, Branch & Storage Solutions
As we head into the big Heroes launch next week, Microsoft today introduced the Windows Essential Server Solutions family of products.
Available later this year, Essential Server Solutions – Windows Small Business Server 2008 and Windows Essential Business Server 2008 – will be the ideal way for small and midsized companies to realize the benefits of Windows Server 2008, Exchange Server 2007, SQL Server 2008 and other new Microsoft server technologies and services. The goal is to make the benefits of enterprise-class IT accessible, affordable and simpler for smaller organizations. One of our main purposes for presenting these two products within a family is to clarify for customers and partners that these are indeed integrated, “all-in-one” solutions, versus scaled down versions of Windows Server, or just various products packaged together.
In our announcement today, we unveiled details about Small Business Server 2008 (official name!), including the technologies and services that are integrated with it. A couple of the notable advancements for customers and partners (among many, outlined in the press release) are:
SBS 2008 Premium Edition is now a two-box solution, including a second copy of Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server Standard Edition, making it an ideal platform for a world of third-party business applications. Great news for software vendors and solution providers.
SBS 2008 integrates a number of new Microsoft-hosted services, such as Office Live Small Business, Windows Live OneCare for Server and Forefront Security for Exchange Small Business Edition, as well as Windows Server Update Services. In this way, SBS 2008 represents the company’s expanding software-plus-services strategy of giving customers the right combinations of hosted services and on-premise software.
We revealed details about Essential Business Server (formerly known as “Centro”) in November. Both products will be demonstrated at the Heroes launch in L.A. next week.
Joel Sider
It’s great news when we launch new versions of our major products, so it only makes sense that one of the great names in the history of journalism will participate in the Heroes Happen Here event in Los Angeles on February 27.
Tom Brokaw will be appearing and commenting on the place of digital technology in the global environment. Mr. Brokaw is a man who hardly needs an introduction: as the anchor and managing editor of NBC Nightly News for 21 years, he is one of the most trusted and respected figures in broadcast journalism.
Appropriately, he is also an expert on unsung heroes. As author of the best-seller The Greatest Generation, he gave voice to the many common men and women who carried America through the Great Depression and World War Two years. In his view, their spirit and values laid the foundation for the nation’s success after the war. It’s a spirit that lives on today – and one that we celebrate with Heroes Happen Here.
With his insight, integrity, and deep interest in technology, Tom Brokaw will bring a keen eye and a great perspective to the Heroes Happen Here event. We couldn’t be more excited. Please join us!
Just a few hours ago, we officially RTM’ed Windows Server 2008 and - as usual - the team is now having a celebration with balloons, hot wings, drinks and speeches. As team members sign their names on a giant copy of the Windows Server 2008 DVD, I look around proudly and see more faces than I can name, shoulder to shoulder smiling with all my colleagues who have helped us get here today.
And while the laughs and smiles fill the room with the excitement that this release brings to the team, our partners, and our customers, I can’t help but have a complete mix of emotions flooding over me.
I’m excited to be part of the best Windows Server release that we have ever released. I’m honored by the continual stream of messages in IM and email that I have been getting all day saying “congratulations." I’m filled with joy like a new father as we bring a new member into the family of Server products, and at the same time I am saddened. I am saddened by the feeling of loss, as people start moving on to new projects.
It is now time to get the product into all of our customers' and partners' hands. I’m looking forward to our launch event on Feb. 27 in Los Angeles and I know that it will be great. Today, I raise my glass to everyone in the room with a smiling tear to my eye and say I could not be more proud to work with a group of seasoned professionals like everyone here today and in few years everyone here can look back with pride and say “I was part of Windows Server 2008."
-Tom Hazel