Software Windows Server OEM , Win Server Standard 2012 R2 / Windows Server 2008 R2

Software Windows Server OEM , Win Server Standard 2012 R2 / Windows Server 2008 R2

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Windows Server 2012

Windows Server 2012, codenamed "Windows Server 8",^[4] is the sixth release of Windows Server. It is the server version of Windows 8 and succeeds Windows Server 2008 R2. Two pre-release versions, a developer preview and a beta version, were released during development. The software was generally available to customers starting on September 4, 2012.^[5]

Unlike its predecessor, Windows Server 2012 has no support for Itanium-based computers,^[6] and has four editions. Various features were added or improved over Windows Server 2008 R2 (with many placing an emphasis on cloud computing), such as an updated version of Hyper-V, an IP address management role, a new version of Windows Task Manager, and ReFS, a new file system. Windows Server 2012 received generally good reviews in spite of having included the same controversial Metro-based user interface seen in Windows 8.

The successor to Windows Server 2012, called Windows Server 2012 R2, was released along with Windows 8.1 in October 2013. A service pack, formally designated Windows Server 2012 R2 Update, was released in April 2014.^[7][8]

History

Windows Server 2012, codenamed "Windows Server 8",^[4] is the sixth release of Windows Server family of operating systems developed concurrently with Windows 8.^[9][10] It was not until April 17, 2012 that the company announced that the final product name would be "Windows Server 2012".^[4]

Microsoft introduced Windows Server 2012 and its developer preview in the BUILD 2011 conference on September 9, 2011.^[11] However, unlike Windows 8, the developer preview of Windows Server 2012 was only made available to MSDN subscribers.^[12] It included a graphical user interface (GUI) based on Metro design language and a new Server Manager, a graphical application used for server management.^[13] On February 16, 2012, Microsoft released an update for developer preview build that extended its expiry date from April 8, 2012 to January 15, 2013.^[14]

Before Windows Server 2012 was finalized, two test builds were made public. A public beta version of Windows Server 2012 was released along with the Windows 8 Consumer Preview on February 29, 2012.^[9] The release candidate of Windows Server 2012 was released on May 31, 2012, along with the Windows 8 Release Preview.^[10]

The product was released to manufacturing on August 1, 2012 and became generally available on September 4, 2012.^[5] However, not all editions of Windows Server 2012 were released at the same time. Windows Server 2012 Essentials was released to manufacturing on October 9, 2012^[15] and was made generally available on November 1, 2012.^[16] As of September 23, 2012, all students subscribed to DreamSpark program can download Windows Server 2012 Standard or Datacenter free of charge.^[17]

Features

See also: Features new to Windows 8

Installation options

Unlike its predecessor, Windows Server 2012 can switch between "Server Core" and "Server with a GUI" installation options without a full reinstallation. Server Core - an option with a command-line interface only - is now the recommended configuration. There is also a third installation option that allows some GUI elements such as MMC and Server Manager to run, but without the normal desktop, shell or default programs like File Explorer.^[13]

User interface

Server Manager has been redesigned with an emphasis on easing management of multiple servers.^[18] The operating system, like Windows 8, uses the Metro-based user interface unless installed in Server Core mode.^[19] Windows Store is available in this version of Windows but is not installed by default.^[20] Windows PowerShell in this version has over 2300 commandlets, compared to around 200 in Windows Server 2008 R2.^[21]

Task Manager

Main article: Windows Task Manager

Windows Server 2012 includes a new version of Windows Task Manager together with the old version.^[22] In the new version the tabs are hidden by default showing applications only. In the new Processes tab, the processes are displayed in varying shades of yellow, with darker shades representing heavier resource use.^[23] It lists application names and status, as well as CPU, memory, hard disk and network utilization. The process information found in the older versions are now moved to the new Details tab. The Performance tab shows "CPU", "Memory", "Disk", "Wi-Fi" and "Ethernet" graphs. The CPU tab no longer displays individual graphs for every logical processor on the system by default; instead, it can display data for each non-uniform memory access (NUMA) node. When displaying data for each logical processor for machines with more than 64 logical processors, the CPU tab now displays simple utilization percentages on heat-mapping tiles.^[24] The color used for these heat maps is blue, with darker shades again indicating heavier utilization. Hovering the cursor over any logical processor's data now shows the NUMA node of that processor and its ID, if applicable. Additionally, a new Startup tab has been added that lists startup applications,^[25] however this tab does not exist in Windows Server 2012.^[26] The new task manager recognizes when a Windows Store app has the "Suspended" status.

IP address management (IPAM)

Windows Server 2012 has an IP address management role for discovering, monitoring, auditing, and managing the IP address space used on a corporate network. The IPAM is used for the management and monitoring of Domain Name System (DNS) and Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) servers. Both IPv4 and IPv6 are fully supported.^[27]

Active Directory

Windows Server 2012 has a number of changes to Active Directory from the version shipped with Windows Server 2008 R2. The Active Directory Domain Services installation wizard has been replaced by a new section in Server Manager, and a GUI has been added to the Active Directory Recycle Bin.^[28] Multiple password policies can be set in the same domain.^[29] Active Directory in Windows Server 2012 is now aware of any changes resulting from virtualization, and virtualized domain controllers can be safely cloned. Upgrades of the domain functional level to Windows Server 2012 are simplified; it can be performed entirely in Server Manager. Active Directory Federation Services is no longer required to be downloaded when installed as a role, and claims which can be used by the Active Directory Federation Services have been introduced into the Kerberos token. Windows Powershell commands used by Active Directory Administrative Center can be viewed in a "Powershell History Viewer".^[30][31]

Hyper-V

Windows Server 2012, along with Windows 8, includes a new version of Hyper-V,^[32] as presented at the Microsoft BUILD event.^[33] Many new features have been added to Hyper-V, including network virtualization, multi-tenancy, storage resource pools, cross-premises connectivity, and cloud backup. Additionally, many of the former restrictions on resource consumption have been greatly lifted. Each virtual machine in this version of Hyper-V can access up to 64 virtual processors, up to 1 terabyte of memory, and up to 64 terabytes of virtual disk space per virtual hard disk (using a new .vhdx format).^[34][35] Up to 1024 virtual machines can be active per host, and up to 8000 can be active per failover cluster.^[36] SLAT is a required processor feature for Hyper-V on Windows 8, while for Windows Server 2012 it is only required for the supplementary RemoteFX role.^[37]

ReFS

Resilient File System (ReFS),^[38] codenamed "Protogon",^[39] is a new file system in Windows Server 2012 initially intended for file servers that improves on NTFS in some respects. Major new features of ReFS include:^[40][41]

Improved reliability for on-disk structures

ReFS uses B+ trees^[40] for all on-disk structures including metadata and file data. Metadata and file data are organized into tables similar to a relational database. The file size, number of files in a folder, total volume size and number of folders in a volume are limited by 64-bit numbers; as a result ReFS supports a maximum file size of 16 Exabytes, a maximum of 18.4 × 10¹⁸ folders and a maximum volume size of 1 Yottabyte (with 64 KB clusters) which allows large scalability with no practical limits on file and folder size (hardware restrictions still apply). Free space is counted by a hierarchical allocator which includes three separate tables for large, medium, and small chunks. File names and file paths are each limited to a 32 KB Unicode text string.

Built-in resilience

ReFS employs an allocation-on-write update strategy for metadata,^[40] which allocates new chunks for every update transaction and uses large IO batches. All ReFS metadata has built-in 64-bit checksums which are stored independently. The file data can have an optional checksum in a separate "integrity stream", in which case the file update strategy also implements allocation-on-write; this is controlled by a new "integrity" attribute applicable to both files and directories. If nevertheless file data or metadata becomes corrupt, the file can be deleted without taking the whole volume offline. As a result of built-in resiliency, administrators do not need to periodically run error-checking tools such as CHKDSK when using ReFS.

Compatibility with existing APIs and technologies

ReFS does not require new system APIs and most file system filters continue to work with ReFS volumes.^[40] ReFS supports many existing Windows and NTFS features such as BitLocker encryption, Access Control Lists, USN Journal, change notifications,^[42] symbolic links, junction points, mount points, reparse points, volume snapshots, file IDs, and oplock. ReFS seamlessly^[40] integrates with Storage Spaces, a storage virtualization layer that allows data mirroring and striping, as well as sharing storage pools between machines.^[43] ReFS resiliency features enhance the mirroring feature provided by Storage Spaces and can detect whether any mirrored copies of files become corrupt using background data scrubbing process, which periodically reads all mirror copies and verifies their checksums then replaces bad copies with good ones.

Some NTFS features are not supported in ReFS, including named streams, object IDs, short names, file compression, file level encryption (EFS), user data transactions, hard links, extended attributes, and disk quotas.^[39][40] Sparse files are supported.^[44][45] ReFS does not itself offer data deduplication.^[40] Dynamic disks with mirrored or striped volumes are replaced with mirrored or striped storage pools provided by Storage Spaces. However, in Windows Server 2012, automated error-correction is only supported on mirrored spaces, and booting from ReFS is not supported either.

IIS 8.0

Windows Server 2012 includes version 8.0 of Internet Information Services (IIS). The new version contains new features such as SNI, CPU usage caps for particular websites,^[46] centralized management of SSL certificates, WebSocket support and improved support for NUMA, but few other substantial changes were made.^[47]

Scalability

Windows Server 2012 supports the following maximum hardware specifications.^[35][48] Windows Server 2012 improves over its predecessor Windows Server 2008 R2:

System requirements

Windows Server 2012 runs only on x64 processors. Unlike its predecessor, Windows Server 2012 does not support Itanium.^[6]

Upgrades from Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2 are supported, although upgrades from prior releases are not.^[50]

Editions

Windows Server 2012 has four editions: Foundation, Essentials, Standard and Datacenter.^{[51][52][53][54][48]}

Reception

Reviews of Windows Server 2012 have been generally positive.^[57][58][59] Simon Bisson of ZDNet described it as "ready for the datacenter, today,"^[57] while Tim Anderson of The Register said that "The move towards greater modularity, stronger automation and improved virtualisation makes perfect sense in a world of public and private clouds" but remarked that "That said, the capability of Windows to deliver obscure and time-consuming errors is unchanged" and concluded that "Nevertheless, this is a strong upgrade overall."^[58]

InfoWorld noted that Server 2012's use of Windows 8's panned "Metro" user interface was countered by Microsoft's increasing emphasis on the Server Core mode, which had been "fleshed out with new depth and ease-of-use features" and increased use of the "practically mandatory" PowerShell.^[60] However, Michael Otey of Windows IT Pro expressed dislike with the new Metro interface and the lack of ability to use the older desktop interface alone, saying that most users of Windows Server manage their servers using the graphical user interface rather than PowerShell.^[61] The Australian construction company Kennards found the OS stable.^[62]

Paul Ferrill wrote that "Windows Server 2012 Essentials provides all the pieces necessary to provide centralized file storage, client backups, and remote access,"^[63] but Tim Anderson contended that "Many businesses that are using SBS2011 and earlier will want to stick with what they have", citing the absence of Exchange, the lack of ability to synchronize with Active Directory Federation Services and the 25-user limit,^[64] while Paul Thurott wrote "you should choose Foundation only if you have at least some in-company IT staff and/or are comfortable outsourcing management to a Microsoft partner or solution provider" and "Essentials is, in my mind, ideal for any modern startup of just a few people."^[65]

Windows Server 2012 R2

Windows Server 2012 R2 was released on October 18, 2013.^[66] It was unveiled on June 3, 2013 at TechEd North America.^[67] According to Windows Server 2012 R2 datasheet published on May 31, 2013, there are four editions of this operating system: Foundation, Essentials, Standard and Datacenter.^[68] As with Windows Server 2012, the Datacenter and Standard editions are feature identical, varying only based on licensing (particularly licensing of virtual instances). The Essentials edition has the same features as the Datacenter and Standard products, with some restrictions.^[69]

A further update, formally designated Windows Server 2012 R2 Update, was released in April 2014,^[7] a cumulative set of security updates, critical updates and updates.^[70]

Windows Server 2012 R2 is succeeded by Windows Server 2016.

Changes from Windows Server 2012

Microsoft has confirmed the following changes introduced by Windows Server 2012 R2:

• Automated Tiering: Storage Spaces stores most frequently accessed files on fastest physical media^[71]

• Deduplication for VHD: Reduces the storage space for VHD files with largely similar contents by storing the similar contents only once^[71]

• Windows PowerShell v4, which now includes a Desired State Configuration (DSC) feature

• Integrated Office 365 support (Essentials edition)

• User interface changes from Windows 8.1, including visible Start button.^[72]

• UEFI-based virtual machines

• Upgrades from driver emulators to synthetic hardware drivers to minimize legacy support

• Faster VM deployment (approximately half the time)^[73]

• Internet Information Services 8.5: Support for logging to Event Tracing for Windows and the ability to log any request/response headers. To improve scalability, if IIS is configured with 100 or more web sites, by default it will not automatically start any of them. Alongside this, a new "Idle Worker Process Page-Out" configuration option has been added to application pools to instruct Windows to page-out the process if it has been idle for the idle time-out period (by default, 20 minutes).^[74]

• Server Message Block: Performance and event logging quality improvements, support for Hyper-V Live Migration over SMB, bandwidth prioritization management, and the ability to remove SMB 1.0 support^[75]

• Windows Deployment Services: Support for managing WDS via PowerShell.^[76]

• Windows Defender is available in a Server Core installation, and is installed and enabled by default.^{[77][dubious – discuss]}

• IP Address Management (IPAM): Extended to support role-based access control, allowing for fine-grained control over which users can view or change configurations for DHCP reservations, scopes, IP address blocks, DNS resource records, etc. Additionally, IPAM can integrate with System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 R2 to have coordinated IP policy across both physical and virtual environments. The IPAM database can be stored in a SQL Server instance instead of Windows Internal Database.^[78]

• Group Policy has a new "Policy Cache" setting which allows domain-joined machines to store a copy of the group policy settings on the client machine and, depending on the speed of access to the domain controller, use those at startup time instead of waiting for the policy settings to download. This can improve startup times on machines that are disconnected from the company network.^[79] New Group Policy settings have been added to cover new features in Windows 8.1 and Internet Explorer 11, such as enabling/disabling SPDY/3 support, configuring start screen layouts, and detecting phone numbers in web pages.^[80]

• TLS support is extended to support RFC 5077, "Transport Layer Security (TLS) Session Resumption without Server-Side State", which improves performance of long-running TLS-secured connections that need to reconnect due to session expiration.

• Hyper-V role and Hyper-V management console are added to the Essentials edition.^[81]

See also

• Microsoft Servers

Notes

• Applies to Windows Server 2008 R2 and 2012 Datacenter and Windows Server 2012 Standard only. Other editions support less.

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• Each virtualized partition, including the host itself, can use up to 64 processors.^[49]

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• Each license of Windows Server 2012 Standard or Datacenter allows up to two processor chips. Each license of Windows Server 2012 Standard allows up to two virtual instances of Windows Server 2012 Standard on that physical server. If more virtual instances of Windows Server 2012 Standard are needed, each additional license of Windows Server 2012 allows up to two more virtual instances of Windows Server 2012 Standard, even though the physical server itself may have sufficient licenses for its processor chip count. Because Windows Server 2012 Datacenter has no limit on the number of virtual instances per licensed server, only enough licenses for the physical server are needed for any number of virtual instances of Windows Server 2012 Datacenter. If the number of processor chips or virtual instances is an odd number, the number of licenses required is the same as the next even number. For example, a single-processor-chip server would still require 1 license, the same as if the server were two-processor-chip and a five-processor-chip server would require 3 licenses, the same as if the server were six-processor-chip, and if 15 virtual instances of Windows Server 2012 Standard are needed on one server, 8 licenses of Windows Server 2012, which can cover up to 16 virtual instances, are needed (assuming, in this example, that the processor chip count does not exceed 16).

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• For the Standard and Datacenter editions, each user or device accessing the software must have a client access license (CAL) assigned (either per-user or per-device), so there may be no more simultaneous users than the number of client-access licenses, except up to 2 simultaneous users purely to administer the server software, or for running virtualization or web workloads. Remote Desktop Services requires an additional CAL separate from the aforementioned CAL.

• If the number of physical processors in a particular server is under 64, the limit is determined by the quantity of licenses assigned to that server. In that case, the number of physical processors cannot exceed twice the number of licenses assigned to the server.

Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise 64-Bit (25 Client Access Licenses)

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Windows Server 2008 R2 is a server operating system produced by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing (RTM) on July 22, 2009^[4] and launched on October 22, 2009.^[5] According to the Windows Server Team blog, the retail availability was September 14, 2009.^[6] It is built on Windows NT 6.1, the same kernel used with the client-oriented Windows 7. It is the first 64-bit-only operating system released from Microsoft. Version enhancements include new functionality for Active Directory, new virtualization and management features, version 7.5 of Microsoft IIS Web Server and support for up to 256^[7] logical processors.

There are seven editions: Foundation, Standard, Enterprise, Datacenter, Web, HPC Server, Itanium and Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 (Essentials Edition).

History

Microsoft introduced Windows Server 2008 R2 at the 2008 Professional Developers Conference as the server variant of Windows 7.

On January 7, 2009, a beta release of Windows Server 2008 R2 was made available to subscribers of Microsoft's TechNet and MSDN programs, as well as those participating in the Microsoft Connect program for Windows 7. Two days later, the beta was released to the public via the Microsoft Download Center.^[8]

On April 30, 2009, the release candidate was made available to subscribers of Microsoft's TechNet and MSDN.^[9] On May 5, 2009, the release candidate was made available to the general public via the Microsoft download center.^[10]

According to Windows Server Division WebLog,^[11] the following are the dates of the year 2009 when Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 has been made available to various distribution channels:

• OEMs received Windows Server 2008 R2 RTM in English and all Language Packs on July 29. The remaining languages were available around August 11.

• ISV (Independent software vendor) and IHV (Independent hardware vendor) partners have been able to download Windows Server 2008 R2 RTM from MSDN starting on August 14.

• IT Professionals with TechNet Subscriptions were able to download Windows Server 2008 R2 RTM and obtain product keys for in English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish beginning August 14 and all remaining languages beginning August 21.

• Developers with MSDN Subscriptions have been able to download and obtain product keys for Windows Server 2008 R2 RTM in English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish starting August 14 and all remaining languages starting August 21.

• Microsoft Partner Program Gold/Certified Members were able to download Windows Server 2008 R2 RTM through the Microsoft Partner Program (MPP) Portal on August 19.

• Volume License (VL) customers with an existing Software Assurance (SA) license were able to download Windows Server 2008 R2 RTM on August 19 via the Volume License Service Center (VLSC).

• Volume License customers without a Software Assurance (SA) license were able to purchase Windows Server 2008 R2 through Volume Licensing by September 1.

Additionally, qualifying students have been able to download Windows Server 2008 R2 RTM Standard Edition in 15 languages from DreamSpark.^[12]

Microsoft has announced that Server 2008 R2 will be the last version of Windows supporting the Itanium architecture.

New features

See also: Features new to Windows 7

A reviewer guide published by the company describes several areas of improvement in version R2.^[13] These include new virtualization capabilities (Live Migration, Cluster Shared Volumes using Failover Clustering and Hyper-V), reduced power consumption, a new set of management tools and new Active Directory capabilities such as a "recycle bin" for deleted AD objects. IIS 7.5 has been added to this release which also includes updated FTP server services. Security enhancements include the addition of DNSSEC support for DNS Server Service (note: even though DNSSEC as such is supported, only one signature algorithm is available^[14] (#5 / RSA/SHA-1). Since many zones use a different algorithm - including the root zone - this means that in reality Windows still can't serve as a recursive resolver) and encrypted clientless authenticated VPN services through DirectAccess for clients using Windows 7. The DHCP server supports a large number of enhancements^[15] such as MAC address-based control filtering, converting active leases into reservations or Link Layer based filters, IPv4 address exhaustion^{[clarification needed]} at scope level^{[clarification needed]}, DHCP Name protection for non-Windows machines to prevent name squatting, better performance through aggressive lease database caching, DHCP activity logging, auto-population of certain network interface fields, a wizard for split-scope configuration, DHCP Server role migration using WSMT, support for DHCPv6 Option 15 (User Class) and Option 32 (Information Refresh Time). The DHCP server runs in the context of the Network Service account which has fewer privileges to reduce potential damage if compromised.

Windows Server 2008 R2 supports up to 64 physical processors^[16] or up to 256 logical processors per system. (Note:Only the Datacenter and Itanium editions can take advantage of the capability of 64 physical processors. Enterprise, the next-highest edition after those two, can only use 8.)^[17] When deployed in a file server role, new File Classification Infrastructure services allow files to be stored on designated servers in the enterprise based on business naming conventions, relevance to business processes and overall corporate policies.^[18]

Server Core includes a subset of the .NET Framework, so that some applications (including ASP.NET web sites and Windows PowerShell 2.0) can be used.

Performance improvement was a major area of focus for this release; Microsoft has stated that work was done to decrease boot time, improve the efficiency of I/O operations while using less processing power, and generally improve the speed of storage devices, especially iSCSI.

Active Directory has several new features when raising the forest and domain functional levels^[19] to Windows Server 2008 R2. When raising the domain function level, two added features are Authentication Mechanism Assurance and Automatic SPN Management. When raising the forest functional level, the Active Directory recycle bin feature is available and can be enabled using the Active Directory Module for Powershell.^[20]

Service Pack

On February 9, 2011, Microsoft officially released the final release (RTM) of Service Pack 1 (SP1) for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 to OEM partners. Apart from bug fixes, it introduces two new major functions, RemoteFX and Dynamic Memory. RemoteFX enables the use of graphics hardware in order to include support for 3D graphics in a Hyper-V based VM. Dynamic Memory makes it possible for a VM to only allocate as much physical RAM as is needed temporarily for its execution. On February 16 Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 became available for MSDN and TechNet Subscribers as well as Volume License customers. As of February 22, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 is generally available for download via the Microsoft Download Center and available on Windows Update. It has a version number of "6.1.7601.17514.101119-1850".^[21]

System requirements

System requirements for Windows Server 2008 R2 are as follows:^[22]

Processor

1.4 GHz x86-64 or Itanium 2 processor

Memory

Minimum: 512 MB RAM (may limit performance and some features)

Recommended: 2 GB RAM

Maximum: 8 GB RAM (Foundation), 32 GB RAM (Standard), or 2 TB RAM (Enterprise, Datacenter and Itanium-Based Systems)

Display

Super VGA (800 x 600) or higher

Disk Space Requirements

Minimum (editions higher than Foundation): 32 GB or more

Minimum (Foundation edition) 10 GB or more.

Computers with more than 16 GB of RAM require more disk space for paging and dump files.^[22]

Other

DVD drive, keyboard and mouse, Internet access (Internet access is optional, but required for updates and online activation)

Editions