Introducing Windows Server 2008   

Windows Server 2008 is an advanced Windows Server operating system, designed to power the next-generation of networks, applications, and Web services. With Windows Server 2008 you can develop, deliver, and manage rich user experiences and applications, provide a highly secure network infrastructure, and increase technological efficiency and value within your organisation. Windows Server 2008 delivers valuable new functionality and powerful improvements to the base operating system. New Web tools, virtualisation technologies, security enhancements, and management utilities help save time, reduce costs, and provide a solid foundation for your information technology (IT) infrastructure.   

A solid foundation for your business

Windows Server 2008 provides a solid foundation for all server workload and application requirements while also being easy to deploy and manage. The all new Server Manager provides a unified management console that simplifies and streamlines server setup, configuration, and ongoing management.

Windows PowerShell, a new command-line shell, helps enable administrators to automate routine system administration tasks across multiple servers.

Windows Deployment Services provides a highly secure means of rapidly deploying the operating system via network-based installations.

Windows Server 2008 Failover Clustering wizards, and full Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) support plus consolidated management of Network Load Balancing, make high availability easy to implement even by IT generalists.

Virtualisation built-in

Windows Server Hyper-V, hypervisor-based server virtualisation technology, allows you to make the best use of your server hardware investments by consolidating multiple server roles as separate virtual machines running on a single physical machine. Y

ou can also efficiently run multiple operating systems - Windows, Linux, and others – in parallel on a single server. Applications can also be efficiently virtualised using Windows Server 2008 centralised application access technologies. Terminal Services Gateway and Terminal Services RemoteApp allow easy remote access to standard Windows-based programs from anywhere by running them on a terminal server instead of directly on a client computer - without the need for a complicated virtual private network (VPN.)

Built for Web

Windows Server 2008 comes with Internet Information Services 7.0 (IIS 7.0), a Web server and security-enhanced, easy-to-manage platform for developing and reliably hosting Web applications and services. A major enhancement to the Windows Web platform, IIS 7.0 includes a componentised architecture for greater flexibility and control. IIS 7.0 also provides simplified management, powerful diagnostic and troubleshooting capabilities that save time, and comprehensive extensibility. Internet Information Server IIS 7.0 together with the .NET Framework 3.0 provides a comprehensive platform for building applications that connect users and data, enabling them to visualize, share, and act on information.  Additionally, IIS 7.0 plays a central role in unifying Microsoft's Web platform technologies—ASP.NET, Windows Communication Foundation Web services, and Windows SharePoint Services.

High Security

The Windows Server operating system has been hardened to help protect against failure and several new technologies help prevent unauthorised connections to your networks, servers, data, and user accounts.  Network Access Protection (NAP) helps ensure that computers that try to connect to your network comply with your organisation's security policy. Technology integration and several enhancements make Active Directory services a potent unified and integrated Identity and Access (IDA) solution. And Read-Only Domain Controller (RODC) and BitLocker Drive Encryption allow you to more securely deploy your AD database at branch office locations.

High performance computing

The benefits and cost savings of Windows Server 2008 extend to Windows HPC Server 2008 for your high performance computing (HPC) environment. Windows HPC Server 2008 is built on Windows Server 2008, x64-bit technology and can efficiently scale to thousands of processing cores with out-of-the-box functionality to improve the productivity, and reduce the complexity of your HPC environment. Windows HPC Server 2008 enables broader adoption by providing a rich and integrated end-user experience that scales from the desktop application to the clusters, and includes a comprehensive set of deployment, administration, and monitoring tools that are easy to deploy, manage, and integrate with your existing infrastructure.

Windows Server 2008 Editions

Windows Server 2008 Standard

With built-in, enhanced Web and virtualisation capabilities, it is designed to increase the reliability and flexibility of your server infrastructure while helping save time and reduce costs. Powerful tools give you greater control over your servers, and streamline configuration and management tasks. Plus, enhance security

features work to harden the operating system to help protect your data and network, and provide a solid, highly dependable foundation for your business.

Windows Server 2008 Enterprise

Is an enterprise-class platform for deploying business-critical applications. It helps improve availability with clustering and hot-add processor capabilities, helps improve security with consolidated identity management features, and reduces infrastructure costs by consolidating applications with virtualisation licensing rights. Windows Server 2008 Enterprise provides the foundation for a highly dynamic, scalable IT infrastructure.

Windows Server 2008 Datacentre

Delivers an enterprise-class platform for deploying business-critical and large-scale virtualisation on small and large servers. It improves availability with clustering and dynamic hardware partitioning capabilities, reduces infrastructure costs by consolidating applications with unlimited virtualisation licensing rights, and scales from 2 to 64 processors. Windows Server 2008 Datacenter provides a foundation on which to build enterprise-class virtualisation and scale-up solutions.

Windows Web Server 2008

Designed to be used specifically as a single-purpose Web server, Windows Web Server 2008 provides a rock-solid foundation of Web infrastructure capabilities in the next-generation Windows Server 2008. Integrated with the newly re-architectured IIS 7.0, ASP.NET, and the Microsoft .NET Framework, Windows Web Server 2008 enables any organisation to rapidly deploy Web pages, Web sites and Web applications.

Windows Server 2008 for Itanium-Based Systems

Is optimised for large databases, line of business and custom applications providing high availability and scalability with up to 64 processors to meet the needs of demanding and mission-critical solutions.

Windows Server 2008 Standard without Hyper-V

Provides all the same features as Windows Server 2008 Standard. However, this product does not include Hyper-V.

Windows Server 2008 Enterprise without Hyper-V 

Provides all the same features as Windows Server 2008 Enterprise. However, this product does not include Hyper-V.

Windows Server 2008 Datacenter without Hyper-V

Provides all the same features as Windows Server 2008 Enterprise. However, this product does not include Hyper-V.

Click here to view all of the new and updated features for Windows Server 2008 and which edition they are supported on.