Windows Server Division WebLog

Microsoft’s Network Access Protection (NAP) solution was cited as a leader (the top category) in a recent independent report, “The Forrester Wave: Network Access Control, Q3 2008.” Microsoft was one of the many network access control (NAC) vendors invited Read More...

With the launch today of Hyper-V - available only in x64 versions - I thought that now would be a good time to revisit the topic of "64-bitness." I'm a technical product manager on the Windows Server team focused on Windows Server 2008, R2, clustering, Read More...

Excerpt from the post on the SBS blog by group program manager Dean Paron: On behalf of the SBS team, I am extremely pleased to announce that Windows Small Business Server 2008 software has been finalized! Today both SBS Standard and Premium are being Read More...

With Windows Server 2008 being released only 6 months ago, i'm sure it’s natural for people to wonder “what’s next?” As I have been combing through various blogs this weekend, I found it exciting to see so much interest and speculation over the next version Read More...

Lots of activities around the upcoming Small Business Server 2008 and Essential Business Server 2008 here in Houston at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference. On top of the many keynotes, sessions and demonstrations to help partners prepare for the Read More...

There are new demonstration videos of the upcoming Small Business Server 2008 and Essential Business Server 2008 on TechNet Edge. Program manager Bjorn Levidow provides an overview of EBS management , including remote administration, add-in management Read More...

Good news. Today we opened up the Public Preview for Windows Essential Server Solutions - Small Business Server 2008 and Essential Business Server 2008 . Visit here to find out how to download and evaluate the Release Candidate 0 versions of both. EBS Read More...

Greetings from Dallas at the SMB Summit , where 400+ channel partners are gearing up for Windows Essential Server Solutions . Small Business Server 2008 is the topic du jour, tomorrow is all about Essential Business Server 2008 for midsized companies. Read More...

I’m really pleased to say that the release candidate of Hyper-V is available for download today. You can read the announcement and Jeff’s more detailed post. This milestone is important to the hundreds of customers and partners in the early adopter programs, and those of you trialing Hyper-V on your own, because it’s feature complete, better performing than the beta, and you’ll have a better experience using it. Reports from the Hyper-V early adopter programs have matched some of the third-party reviews and first looks, with comments such as: · “External deployments have exceeded Beta coverage goals” · “External TAP deployments have increased significantly” Amongst the early adopter customers, the three most common Windows Server 2008 roles run within Hyper-V are IIS, application server and Terminal Services. The four most deployed Microsoft applications are SQL Server 2005 and 2008, Exchange Server and Forefront, while more than half of the customers are running an AV/security application, nearly 50% are running a backup appliance at this point, and around 75% of the customers are running Hyper-V with some attached storage. At the same time we’re starting to see more and more and more ISV partners announce plans to support Hyper-V. So overall we’re seeing good enterprise uptake of Hyper-V. I was in France and the Nordics two weeks ago attending launch events for Windows Server, SQL Server and Visual Studio. Lots of the attendees had already started testing the beta of Hyper-V. Several people remarked that they were impressed with early testing of the multi-site clustering capabilities for remote disaster recovery. Beyond the technical capabilities, total cost of ownership was another hot topic. Given that Hyper-V is a role within Windows Server 2008 – the beta of Hyper-V was included with Windows Server 2008 – customers attending the launch were looking forward to having these server consolidation and DR capabilities built into Windows Server 2008. I did have to remind several folks that Hyper-V will be available with three, x64 editions of Windows Server 2008 (the versions of Windows Server 2008 without Hyper-V are $28 less). And I often noted our work on cross-platform interoperability with Citrix/Xen, Novell and Sun, and that we’re opening up APIs to the community. Read More...

Lots happening in Orlando at Convergence 2008 - the Microsoft Dynamics users' conference. Steve Ballmer and vice president Kirill Tatarinov are speaking and the Dynamics team is making a number of announcements , including a partnership with EDS to extend Read More...

The team behind Windows Essential Business Server 2008 for midsized companies (part of the newly announced Windows Essential Server Solutions family and formerly known as "Centro") has launched a team blog here . Group Program Manager Eric Watson provides Read More...

In the course of talking to many Microsoft partners and customers, the Windows Small Business Server team has learned that there are sometimes misperceptions about the product, in many cases based on experiences with the earlier versions of SBS. In hopes Read More...

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 Read More...

As I write this, I’m in the room where it all happens - in building 26, better known as the ship room. Ten minutes ago Windows Server 2008 officially RTM’d. Also in here with me are my colleagues who have been working on Windows Vista SP1, also RTM’ing Read More...

Mid-market IT professionals interested in learning more about the upcoming Essential Business Server solution should tune into this show on BlogTalkRadio . Microsoft's Steve VanRoekel and Arlin Sorensen of Heartland Technology Solutions talk about the Read More...